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THE 
RECONSTRUCTION 
OF  POLAND  AND 
THE   NEAR    EAST 


T  H  P 

RECONSTRUCTION 
OF  POLAND  AND 
THE   NEAR    EAST 

PROBLEMS  OF  PEACE 


BY 

HERBERT  ADAMS  GIBBONS,  Ph.D.,  F.  R.  Hist.  S. 

Author  of  "The  Foundation  of  the  Ottoman  Empire," 

"The  New  Map  of  Europe,"  "The  New 

Map  of  Africa,"  etc. 


I'VWi^'VtVrf'* 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1917 


^1  Qld 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
The  Century  Co. 

Publiahed,  July,  1917 


Or  3^" 


TO 

MY  MOTHER 

INDEFATIGABLE  TRAVELER 

WHO  LOVES  THE  LANDS  AND  RACES 

OF 

THE  NEAR  EAST 


FOREWORD 

The  chapters  of  this  book  were  written 
as  a  series  of  articles  for  the  "Century 
Magazine."  At  the  time  of  the  Russian 
Revolution  and  the  intervention  of  the 
United  States,  the  chapters  on  Poland 
and  Constantinople  had  already  been  pub- 
lished and  the  others  were  in  print. 

The  Russian  Revolution  has  not 
changed  the  general  aspect  of  the  prob- 
lems of  reconstruction  in  the  Near  East. 
The  principle  of  independent  Poland  still 
needs  to  be  insisted  upon,  and  the  plea  for 
the  Balkan  nationalities  and  the  races  of 
the  Near  East  still  needs  to  be  advanced. 
The  contest  in  Petrograd  over  changing 
Russia's  objects  in  the  war  nearly  led  to 
the  disruption  of  the  Provisional  Govern- 
vii 


FOREWORD 

ment.  The  resistance  of  the  Cadets  and 
Octobrists  to  the  new  poHcy  of  "no  annex- 
ations, no  indemnities,"  cuhninating  in  JNI. 
Mihukoff' s  effort  to  rob  the  Revolution  of 
its  significance  in  so  far  as  Russian  for- 
eign pohcy  was  concerned,  shows  that 
Russian  imperialism  was  not  destroyed  in 
March.  The  reactionaries  will  not  fail  to 
try  to  overthrow  the  new  regime.  They 
will  look  to  imperialistic  aspirations  again, 
as  in  the  past,  to  win  outside  support:  and 
they  know  from  the  past  that  not  a  single 
European  power  has  ever  hesitated  to  sell 
out  liberalism  and  democracy  in  Russia  to 
secure  the  diplomatic  support  of  the  oc- 
cult powers.  Only  when  secret  diplomacy 
is  abandoned  in  Europe  will  democracy  be 
safe  in  Russia,  and  only  then  will  the  Poles 
and  the  Near  Eastern  races  be  free  to 
work  out  their  own  destinies. 

The  problems  of  the  reconstruction  of 
viii 


FOREWORD 

Poland  and  the  Near  East  are  of  more 
vital  interest  to  Americans  than  when  I 
wrote  these  articles.  The  intervention  of 
the  United  States  on  the  side  of  the  En- 
tente realizes  a  hope  and  longing  I  have 
had  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  con- 
flict. But  whether  the  great  war  goes 
down  to  history  as  the  struggle  of  ideal- 
ism and  democracy  against  materiahsm 
and  autocracy  or  as  an  economic  and  po- 
litical conflict  of  rival  states  fighting  for 
European  and  extra-European  territorial 
expansion,  depends  very  largely  upon  how 
we  play  our  role.  We  must  not  be  drawn 
by  the  heat  of  the  struggle  into  the 
espousal  of  terms  of  peace  contrary  to  the 
principles  and  ideals  of  American  foreign 
and  internal  policy. 

We  have  gone  into  the  war  with  all  our 
might  and  all  our  will,  and  we  shall  spare 
no  sacrifice  of  blood  and  treasure  to  de- 
ix 


FOREWORD 

feat  Germany's  schemes  of  territorial  ag- 
grandizement and  subjugation  of  other 
nations.  But  we  must  be  on  oui*  guard, 
with  our  Allies,  to  avoid  the  pitfall  of  be- 
ing conquered  by  those  whom  we  conquer. 
We  go  forth  to  destroy  militarism.  Let 
us  not  set  up  another  militarism.  We  go 
forth  to  punish  imperialism.  Let  us  not 
become  imperialistic.  We  go  forth  to 
free  nations  from  their  slavery  to  our  ene- 
mies.    Let  us  not  make  them  our  slaves. 

Herbert  Adams  Gibbons. 

Paris,  June  1,  1917. 


CONTENTS 

PAOB 

I.     The  Future  of  Poland      ...        3 

11.     Constantinople:     Pawn  or  Prin- 
ciple.?    54? 

III.  Europe  and  Islam 101 

IV.  Italy  and  the  Balance  of  Power 

IN  THE  Balkans 154 

V.     The    Monroe    Doctrine    for    the 

World 203 


THE 
RECONSTRUCTION 
OF   POLAND  AND 
THE  NEAR    EAST 


THE  RECONSTRUCTION 

OF  POLAND 
AND  THE   NEAR  EAST 

THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

The  Poles  no  longer  have  a  common  country, 
but  they  have  a  common  language.  They  will 
remain,  then,  united  by  the  strongest  and  most 
durable  of  all  bonds.  They  will  arrive,  under 
foreign  domination,  to  the  age  of  manhood,  and 
the  moment  they  reach  that  age  will  not  be  far 
from  that  in  which,  emancipated,  they  will  all 
be  attached  once  more  to  one  center. — Talley- 
rand, after  his  return  from  the  Congress  of 
Vienna,  1815. 

GREAT  BRITAIN  and  France,  as 
well  as  Russia,  Austria,  and  Prus- 
sia, were  signatories  of  the  Treaty  of 
Vienna,  and  were  bound  by  their  signa- 
ture to  e'lforce  its  provisions.  The  first 
article  (  the  final  act  of  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  eclared  solemnly:  "The  Poles, 
3 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

subjects  respectively  of  Russia,  Austria, 
and  Prussia,  will  obtain  national  repre- 
sentation and  national  institutions." 
Russia,  in  addition,  undertook  to  preserve 
separate  and  autonomous  the  kingdom  of 
Poland,  which  was  to  enjoy  its  own  laws, 
language,  and  constitution.  During  the 
hundred  years  that  Europe  lived  under 
the  regime  established  by  the  Congress  of 
Vienna,  Russia,  Austria,  and  Prussia  con- 
stantly and  consistently  regarded  their  in- 
ternational obligation  toward  the  Poles  as 
a  "scrap  of  paper."  British  and  French 
diplomats  of  successive  ministries  never 
lifted  a  finger  to  help  the  Poles  to  retain 
those  rights  guaranteed  to  them  at  Vienna. 
They  were  content  to  send  notes  of  mild 
remonstrance  to  Russia  after  the  disgrace- 
ful events  of  1831  and  1863,  and  to  Austria 
when  the  Repubhc  of  Cracow  was  sup- 
pressed in  184G.  It  is  only  since  the  be- 
4 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

ginning  of  the  present  war  that  the  surpris- 
ing thesis  has  been  developed  in  London 
and  Paris  that  a  nation  is  materiahstic  and 
has  no  sense  of  honor  when  it  does  not  wish 
to  rush  into  war  over  questions  of  principle 
and  humanity  which  do  not  vitally  affect 
its  own  national  interests,  and  that  it  is  a 
sign  of  weakness,  pusillanimity,  and  in- 
decision for  statesmen  to  send  notes ! 

There  has  been  among  enlightened  lib- 
erals in  all  nations,  and  especially  in 
France,  deep  sympathy  for  the  martyrdom 
of  Poland,  and  a  desire  to  see  her  historic 
wrongs  righted.  But  during  the  decade 
preceding  the  outbreak  of  the  European 
War,  the  Poles  learned  that  they  had  no 
friends  anywhere  among  the  nations. 
For  when  Germany  and  Russia  entered 
into  a  new  era  of  persecution,  more  for- 
midable than  any  experienced  in  the  past, 
there  was  no  protest  except  from  Austria- 
5 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

Hungary,  who  had  manifestly  an  ax  to 
grind.  JNIore  than  tliat,  old  friends  in 
Great  Britain  and  France,  with  an  eye  to 
conciliating  Russia,  not  only  became  in- 
different in  the  hour  of  trial,  but  even  at- 
tempted to  justify — or  at  least  to  condone 
— the  crimes  of  Russia.  Long  before  the 
events  of  August,  1914,  proved  the  reality 
of  the  "Triple  Entente,"  the  Anglo- 
Russo-French  alliance  was  foreshadowed 
in  the  way  London  and  Paris  journalism 
handled  the  Polish  question.  If  there  is 
one  lesson  for  Americans  in  the  European 
War  and  the  events  which  preceded  it,  it 
is  that  we  must  write  our  own  history  and 
do  our  own  reporting.  Otherwise  we  are 
sure  to  be  misinformed  about  what  has 
been  done,  and  is  being  done,  in  Europe. 
Prejudice,  hopeless  bias,  insincerity,  spe- 
cial pleading,  are  the  order  of  the  day 
among  European  writers. 
6 


I 

THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

The  violation  of  Russia's  international 
obligations  to  Poland  and  Finland  has 
been  explained  on  the  ground  that  the  old 
Russian  policy  was  dictated  by  the  bu- 
reaucracy, and  that  all  would  be  changed 
when  the  will  of  enlightened  Russian 
liberalism  began  to  make  itself  felt.  The 
inauguration  of  the  Duma  was  hailed  as 
the  beginning  of  a  new  era  for  Russia, 
just  as  the  reestablishment  of  Abdul- 
Hamid's  constitution  was  hailed  as  the  be- 
ginning of  a  new  era  for  Turkey.  There 
seemed  to  be  a  curious  failure — and  there 
still  is — on  the  part  of  Occidental  observ- 
ers to  realize  that  the  attempt  to  graft 
our  constitutionalism  upon  these  two  Ori- 
ental organisms  could  not  bring  forth  the 
fruit  confidently  predicted  and  imme- 
diately expected.  The  democracy  of 
western  Europe  is  a  slow  growth,  born  of 
Rome,  the  Renaissance,  and  the  Reforma- 
7 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

tioii,  nurtui-ed  by  the  tears  and  blood  of 
our  ancestors  through  many  generations, 
and  made  secure  through  universal  edu- 
cation. What  can  we  hope  for  in  east- 
ern Europe  and  Asia  in  less  than  a 
decade? 

Poland  and  Finland  fared  far  worse 
at  tlie  hands  of  Russia  since  the  Duma 
came  into  being  than  before.  The  Rus- 
sian liberals  are  nationalists  of  the 
most  virulent  type,  and  they  believe  that 
the  full  play  of  constitutionalism  is  pos- 
sible only  after  the  entire  empire  has  un- 
dergone thorough  Russification.  So  they 
have  waged  a  bitter  war  against  the  Poles 
by  reducing  Polish  representation  in  the 
Duma,  by  opposing  local  self-govern- 
ment for  municipalities,  by  refusing  the 
Poles  the  privilege  of  being  educated  in 
their  own  language,  and  by  searching  for 
the  development  of  existing  laws  and  the 
8 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

invention  of  new  laws  to  ruin  the  Poles 
economically.  It  is  the  fashion  to-day  to 
hold  up  Austria-Hungary  under  the 
Hapsburgs  as  the  shining  example  of 
the  oppressor  of  small  nationalities  that 
have  been  seeking  to  lead  their  own  life. 
Certainly  none  can  deny  the  oppression 
of  the  Slavic  nationalities  in  the  dual 
monarchy  by  the  German  and  JNIagyar 
bureaucrats  of  Vienna  and  Budapest.  I 
was  in  Agram,  the  capital  of  Croatia,  dur- 
ing that  memorable  spring  of  1912,  when 
the  iniquity  of  Austria-Hungarian  offi- 
cialdom was  laid  bare  before  the  world. 
Only  three  months  later  I  was  in  Helsing- 
fors,  the  capital  of  Finland,  and  it  was 
while  I  was  investigating  the  Russian  per- 
secution of  the  Finns  that  I  read  an  "in- 
spired" news  article  from  Petrograd 
which  attempted  to  justify  the  separation 
of  the  province  of  Khehn  from  the  king- 
9 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

(loin  of  Poland.  Never,  in  the  worst  days 
of  the  iron  heel,  had  the  old  Russian  des- 
potism gone  so  far  as  to  inij^air  the  terri- 
torial integrity  of  the  Poland  intrusted  to 
Russia  l)y  the  Congress  of  Vienna! 

Until  we  are  sure  that  the  hold  of  the 
Socialists  upon  the  Russian  Provisional 
Government  is  going  to  last  until  after  the 
Peace  Conference,  we  can  put  no  faith  in 
the  proclamation  promising  independence 
to  Poland.  In  spite  of  the  success  of 
Kerensky  and  his  associates  in  ousting  M. 
Miliukoff  from  the  IMinistry  of  Foreign 
Affairs  and  from  the  Cabinet  all  together, 
we  must  remember  that  the  Duma  still 
exists,  and  that  the  Cadets  and  Octobrists 
have  little  inclination  to  support  the  pro- 
gram of  the  Socialists.  When  jNI.  JNIihu- 
koff  was  in  Paris  in  1916,  he  disappointed 
and  pained  his  old  liberal  friends  by  his 
bitter  hostility  to  Polish  autonomy,  let 
10 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

alone  Polish  independence.  The  Petro- 
grad  Revolution  was  the  work  of  the  So- 
cialists and  the  extreme  Radicals,  whose 
principles — in  every  country  in  Europe — 
are  irreconcilable  with  nationalism  and 
imperialism.  The  bulk  of  the  members  of 
the  Duma,  and  most  of  the  Russian  lead- 
ers who  call  themselves  moderates,  are 
more  Czarist  than  Czarism  itself  in  their 
views  on  foreign  policy.  If  the  extremists 
ruin  their  prestige  by  excesses  and  inabil- 
ity to  cope  with  the  situation,  the  moder- 
ates, returning  to  jiower,  will  give  short 
shrift  to  Polish  dreams  of  indej^endence. 
During  the  last  decade,  the  Prussian 
Government,  also  without  interference 
from  the  imperial  Reichstag,  carried  on  a 
brutal  and  cynical  war  against  the  Poles 
of  Posnania  and  Eastern  Prussia.  The 
aim  of  German  statesmen,  like  those  of 
Russia,  was  to  stamp  out  Polish  nation- 
11 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

ality  by  every  possible  means.  Some  So- 
cialists and  a  certain  section  of  the  Cath- 
olic Center  protested  in  the  Reichstag  and 
in  the  press  against  Prussia's  anti-Polish 
measures,  pointing  out  their  folly  as  well 
as  tlieir  illegality.  But  the  great  bulk  of 
the  German  lawmakers  ^  profess  the  same 
narrow  nationalism  as  the  Russian  law- 
makers. They  are  determined  to  give  no 
quarter  to  Poles  who  have  the  misfortune 
to  be  German  subjects  until  they  abandon 
their  nationality  and  their  language. 
From  1848  up  to  the  outbreak  of  the  pres- 
ent war,  Germany  has  displayed  complete 
solidarity  with  Russia  in  her  treatment  of 
the  Polish  question.  The  dictum  has 
been,  "Poland  is  dead;  she  must  never  be 
resuscitated." 

1  Let  us  keep  in  mind  that  the  Duma,  hostile  to  Polish 
independence,  is  still  the  legal  lawmaking  body  in  Rus- 
sia, until  the  project  of  a  national  election  has  beeo 
realized. 

12 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

Of  the  partitioners,  Austria  alone  gave 
the  Poles  autonomy,  and  allowed  them 
freedom  in  the  development  of  their  na- 
tional life  and  their  national  institutions. 
Galicia  has  enjoyed  a  peculiarly  fortunate 
geographical  and  political  position  since 
the  formation  of  the  dual  monarchy  in 
1867.  To  keep  the  Bohemians  in  check, 
to  prevent  the  spread  of  Russian  propa- 
ganda, to  forestall  the  possibility  of  the 
German  element  being  put  in  a  minority 
in  the  Vienna  Reichsrath  by  a  Panslavic 
combination,  Austrian  statesmen  have  con- 
sistently curried  favor  with  the  Poles. 
Thanks  to  the  exigencies  of  Austrian  in- 
ternal politics,  Galicia  has  become  the 
foyer  of  Polish  nationalism,  and  from 
Cracow  and  Lemberg  has  gone  forth  the 
light  to  keep  alive  and  foster  the  hope  of 
the  ultimate  realization  of  the  aspirations 
of  the  Polish  people.  Many  Poles  have 
13 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

resented  deeply  what  they  call  the  Ga- 
licians'  indifference  to,  or,  as  it  is  some- 
times more  strongly  put,  betrayal  of  the 
pan-Polish  ideal.  But  is  it  not  because 
they  refuse  to  put  themselves  in  the  other 
man's  place,  and  to  realize  that  he  who 
gets  must  give?  It  would  be  strange  in- 
deed if  the  Galicians,  comparing  their  lot 
with  that  of  Poles  under  the  Romanoffs 
and  Hohenzollerns,  should  remain  uncom- 
promising and  unwilling — if  only  for  pol- 
icy's sake — to  give  a  certain  measure  of 
loyalty  and  to  show  a  certain  measure  of 
a2:)preciation  to  the  Hapsburgs. 

But  from  an  economic  point  of  view,  the 
Poles  under  the  Hapsburgs  have  suffered 
serious  handicaps  for  which  political  au- 
tonomy is  only  a  partial  recompense.  If 
we  believe  in  the  principle  that  all  sub- 
jects of  a  state  have  a  right  to  free  and 
unrestricted  enjoyment  of  the  advantages 
14 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

accruing  from  membership  in  that  state, 
and  are  not  to  be  discriminated  against  or 
exploited  for  the  profit  of  others,  there  is 
ground  for  a  serious  indictment  of  the 
Austro-Hungarian  dual  monarchy  in  the 
treatment  of  the  Poles,  however  favored 
they  may  have  been  politically.  Xearly 
one  third  of  Austria's  grain,  more  than 
two  fifths  of  her  potatoes,  one  half  of  her 
horses,  and  one  fourth  of  her  cattle  are 
raised  in  Galicia.  Hungary  and  portions 
of  Austria  specialize  in  the  same  products ; 
so  the  agriculture  and  stock-raising  of 
Galicia  are  not  essential  for  the  well-being 
of  the  empire.  And  by  refusing  logical 
railway  and  canal  construction,  Austria 
and  Hungary  have  kept  Galicia  in  a  posi- 
tion of  inferiority  for  export  of  agricul- 
tural products  and  stock.  There  has  been 
equal  malevolence  in  the  way  Austria  has 
blocked  the  development  of  Galicia's  salt 
15 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

to  prevent  industrial  competition.  Aus- 
tria, enjoying  free  trade  with  Galicia,  has 
forced  her  manufactured  products  upon 
the  Poles,  and  they  have  been  powerless  to 
compel  her  to  take  from  Galicia  a  full 
equivalent  in  Galician  products.  Only 
the  discovery  of  petroleum,  which  is  not 
found  elsewhere  in  the  dual  monarchy,  has 
enabled  Galicia  to  prosper  in  the  face  of 
artificial  economic  disadvantages. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  intention,  and 
in  execution,  the  Russian  exploitation  of 
Poland  has  been  far  worse.  Since  1865, 
Polish  proprietors  in  Ruthenia  and  Lithu- 
ania have  been  compelled  to  pay  into  the 
Russian  treasury  a  supertax  of  ten  per 
cent,  on  their  income.  The  kingdom  of 
Poland,  with  only  one  fifteenth  of  the  pop- 
ulation, has  of  recent  years  been  mulcted 
for  nearly  one  fourth  of  the  entire  revenue 
of  the  Russian  Empire!  Besides  sup- 
16 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

porting  between  two  and  three  hundred 
thousand  foreign  functionaries,  oppres- 
sors, and  criminals,  the  Poles  have  fur- 
nished a  large  part  of  the  funds  for  Rus- 
sia's activities  in  Siberia  and  central  Asia. 
For  the  money  raised  by  taxes  is  not  spent 
in  the  country.  The  Poles,  powerless  to 
legislate  for  themselves  and  control  the  ex- 
penditure of  the  tremendous  taxes  wrung 
from  them,  have  had  to  struggle  against 
the  handicap  of  the  most  miserable  roads 
in  Europe.  In  this  day  of  international 
commerce,  when  transportation  facilities 
mean  so  much,  Russian  Poland,  both  in 
proportion  to  inhabitants  and  to  area,  has 
fewer  railways  than  any  other  country  in 
Europe.  Taking  wagon  roads  and  rail- 
ways together,  Russian  Poland  holds  the 
lowest  place  among  the  civilized  countries 
of  the  world.  Russian  Poland  is  perhaps 
also  the  only  country  in  the  world  where 
17 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

public  primary  education  has  fallen  off  in 
the  last  four  hundred  years.  The  Rus- 
sian exploiters,  filling  their  treasury  with 
Polish  money,  maintained,  according  to 
the  census  of  1912,  only  4641  primary 
schools  in  Poland,  with  282,000  pupils. 
This  means  one  school  for  every  2750  in- 
habitants; while  the  rest  of  Russia  enjoys 
a  school  for  every  1430  inhabitants.  In 
the  same  territory,  in  the  year  1500,  the 
Poles  had  a  primary  school  for  every  2250 
inhabitants.  The  most  sweeping  suppres- 
sion of  public  education  in  Poland  has 
come  since  the  establishment  of  the  Duma. 
In  1906  nearly  a  thousand  primary  schools 
were  closed  in  Poland  without  explana- 
tion or  justification.  In  the  kingdom  of 
Poland,  right  down  to  the  opening  of  the 
present  war,  the  regime  of  bitter  oppres- 
sion continued.  There  was  no  liberty  of 
speech,  of  association,  of  teaching,  of 
18 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

press,  and  even  the  private  expression  of 
one's  opinion  led  to  banishment  or  death. 
Despite  the  ill  will  and  incompetency 
of  the  bureaucracy,  Russian  Poland  has 
prospered  wonderfully  from  the  indus- 
trial point  of  view,  and  has  gained  steadily 
in  importance  as  a  manufacturing  coun- 
try. Warsaw  has  attained  over  a  million 
inhabitants,  and  the  growth  of  Lodz  is 
comparable  to  that  of  the  great  industrial 
cities  of  Germany,  England,  and  Amer- 
ica. In  their  industrial  life  the  people  of 
Poland  have  benefited  by  the  union  with 
Russia,  for  they  have  been  able  to  de- 
velop their  manufactures  with  the  view 
of  supplying  the  needs  of  the  greatest 
country  of  Europe,  a  country  in  which 
industry  is  far  behind  that  of  other  nations. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  those  who  have 
benefited  by  the  open  door  to  Russian 
markets  have  been  willing  to  submit  to 
19 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

political  persecution  and  even  to  economic 
discrimination.  What  matters  it  if  rail- 
way rates  are  so  arranged  that  freight 
from  Warsaw  to  ^Moscow  pays  a  consider- 
ably higher  tariff  than  freight  from  INIos- 
cow  to  Warsaw?  As  long  as  Russia  can- 
not compete  with  Poland  in  manufactures, 
the  industrial  element  in  Poland  is  willing 
to  grin  and  bear  this  discrimination.  But 
it  is  not  the  same  for  agriculture,  which  is 
after  all  the  chief  source  of  wealth  of  every 
country.  Russian  Poland  is  marvelously 
rich,  and  its  people  are  as  industrious  as 
any  in  the  world.  They  get  along.  But 
how  much  better  they  could  do  if  they  had 
a  fair  chance !  Under  Russian  rule,  Poles 
have  emigrated  in  great  numbers,  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  who  ought  to  have 
plenty  to  do  at  home  must  go  every  year 
to  Germany  to  find  work  at  living  wages. 
From  the  purely  material  point  of  view, 
20 


In  this  map  the  temtor\  m  which  those  of  Pohsh  extraction  predominate  u  indicated  in  black  That  part  of 
it  to  the  right  of  the  nhite  hne  is  at  present  included  in  Russia,  of  that  to  the  left,  the  Dorthera  portion  is  non 
included  in  Gerroanj .  the  southern,  m  Auslna 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

the  Poles  cannot  claim  to  be  badly  off 
under  German  rule.  They  have  benefited 
fully  as  much  as  the  Germans  themselves 
by  the  prosj^erity  of  the  German  Emj)ii'e 
since  its  unification.  Roads  are  good  and 
well  kept  up.  Railroads  are  abundant. 
The  economic  organization  is  superb. 
One  has  only  to  study  the  figures  of  Polish 
bank  balances  in  Prussia  to  see  that  the 
Poles  have  received  their  full  share  of  the 
prosperity  that  has  come  to  Germany 
during  the  last  thirty  years.  In  spite  of 
hostile  legislation,  they  have  enjoyed  as 
individuals  the  protection  and  privileges 
of  the  German  laws.  There  are  schools 
for  all  in  Prussian  Poland.  Polish  work- 
ing-men share  in  the  benefits  of  enlight- 
ened German  social  legislation.  The 
press  is  free.  For  this  reason  Posen,  and 
not  Warsaw,  has  become  the  center  for 
books,  magazines,  and  newspapers  in  the 
21 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

Polish  language.  German  Poles  have 
everything  but  the  right  to  be  Poles  and 
govern  themselves.  The  attitude  of  the 
Prussian  Junker  to  the  Pole  is  very  simi- 
lar to  that  of  the  English  Tory  to  the 
Irishman:  "You  have  the  full  dinner- 
pail.  Your  union  with  us  is  of  enormous 
benefit  to  you.  Why,  in  the  name  of 
Heaven,  are  you  not  satisfied?" 

Up  to  the  outbreak  of  the  war  in  1914, 
Russia,  Germany,  and  to  a  certain  extent 
Austria,  ignored  the  possibility  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  Polish  nation.  They 
had  declared  so  repeatedly  that  the  inde- 
pendence of  Poland  was  a  chimera,  and 
that  "agitators"  who  kept  alive  the  feeling 
of  nationality  among  their  Poles  were 
criminals  and  working  against  the  best 
interests  of  their  people,  that  the  rest  of 
Europe — the  whole  world  in  fact — had 
ended  by  believing  that  the  Polish  ques- 
22 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

tion  was  dead.  No  more  striking  illustra- 
tion of  this  can  be  found  than  in  the  simple 
fact  that  three  years  ago  a  writer  could 
not  get  published  in  a  big  newspaper, 
much  less  in  a  leading  magazine  or  review, 
any  article  dealing  with  the  possibility  of 
the  resurrection  of  Poland.  I  know,  for 
I  have  tried.  The  invariable  answer  was 
that  there  was  no  interest  in  the  Polish 
question,  or  that  the  Polish  question  did 
not  exist. 

But  when  the  participants  of  Poland 
came  to  blows  among  themselves,  the 
world  awoke  suddenly  to  the  fact  that  the 
Polish  question  was  not  dead,  that  the 
Poles  had  kept  alive  through  a  century  of 
martyrdom  their  consciousness  of  race, 
and  that  they  were  numerous  enough  to 
have  a  decisive  effect  upon  the  issue  of  the 
war.  How  bitterly  the  Germans  must 
have  rued  the  Prussian  policy  of  antag- 
23 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

onizing  the  Poles!  What  an  advantage 
the  Central  Powers  would  have  enjoyed 
had  the  Prussian  Landtag  during  the  last 
decade  shown  toward  the  Poles  the  same 
liberal  spirit  as  the  Austrian  Reichsrath! 
If  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary  had 
been  able  to  get  together  at  the  very  begin- 
ning of  the  war,  and  had  announced  to  all 
the  Poles  that  they  intended  to  restore 
Poland  as  an  independent  nation,  Russia 
would  have  been  powerless  to  strike  a  blow 
on  the  eastern  front.  But  chickens  came 
home  to  roost  for  Germany  immediately. 
In  view  of  the  bitter  Prussian  persecution 
during  the  last  decade,  how  could  the 
Poles  be  expected  to  have  more  faith  in 
German  promises  than  in  the  words  of  the 
Grand  Duke  Nicholas?  The  Poles  did 
not  know  where  they  stood,  and  had  little 
reason  to  put  any  faith  at  all  in  the  fair 
promises  of  either  side. 
24 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

The  first  months  of  the  war  were  a 
period  of  enthusiasm,  when  clear  detached 
thinking  was  virtually  impossible  for  any- 
one. No  man  with  red  blood  in  his  veins 
could  be  really  neutral.  One  simply  had 
to  take  sides,  and  the  fact  that  Russia  was 
the  ally  of  France  and  that  the  offensive 
movement  of  the  Russian  armies  relieved 
the  pressure  upon  Paris  was  sufficient  for 
men  of  liberal  thought  throughout  the 
whole  world  to  do  their  very  best  to  ac- 
cept and  believe  the  Russian  promises 
made  to  Poland  in  the  Grand  Duke 
Nicholas's  proclamation.  Even  in  Au- 
gust, 1914,  however,  it  was  very  difficult 
to  take  at  face-value  this  stirring  appeal 
for  Polish  friendship.  The  Russian 
change  of  heart  lay  under  the  natural 
suspicion  of  being  due  to  expediency  and 
determined  by  the  military  exigencies  of 
the  moment.     This  suspicion  grew  when 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

the  Grand  Duke's  promises  were  not  con- 
firmed by  an  imperial  ukase.  Then  came 
the  temporar}^  Russian  successes  in  Gahcia 
and  the  capture  of  Lemberg.  Russia  had 
her  moment  of  great  opportunity.  But 
instead  of  conserving  Pohsh  hberties  en- 
joyed under  Austrian  rule  in  this  historic 
Polish  city,  Russian  officials,  military  and 
civil,  started  right  in  on  the  old  policy  of 
sweeping  Russification,  and  let  the  Poles 
understand  clearly  that  there  was  no  hope 
of  emancipation  from  Russia.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  had  Russia  been  suc- 
cessful in  her  initial  campaign  and  kept 
the  Germans  out  of  Poland,  we  should 
have  heard  no  more  of  the  promises  of 
August,  1914. 

Hard  a  blow  as  it  was,  then,  to  the  cause 

of  the  Allies,  the  entry  of  the  Germans 

into  Warsaw  was  a  distinct  step  forward 

for  the  reahzation  of  Pohsh  aspirations; 

26 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

while  the  failure  of  the  Russians  to  capture 
Cracow  and  their  debacle  in  eastern  Gali- 
cia  could  not  be  looked  upon  by  the  Poles 
in  any  other  light  than  as  rescue  from  a 
great  danger. 

I  do  not  mean  to  infer  by  this  that  the 
success  of  the  Central  Powers,  if  perma- 
nent, would  have  resulted  in  the  restora- 
tion of  Poland  to  independence  or  auton- 
omy. The  decisive  success  of  either  group 
of  belligerents,  in  a  short  war,  would  have 
meant  for  the  Poles  merely  the  passing 
from  Scylla  to  Charybdis.  Victorious 
Germany  would  not  have  needed  to  con- 
ciliate the  Poles  any  more  than  victorious 
Russia.  In  fact,  had  the  war  lasted  only 
one  or  two  years,  the  question  of  Poland 
and  her  aspirations  would  easily  and 
quickly  have  been  forgotten  in  the  peace 
conference.  Had  Germany  been  victori- 
ous, no  voice  would  have  been  raised  to 
27 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

compel  her  to  settle  the  destinies  of  central 
and  eastern  Europe  in  any  other  way  than 
in  accordance  with  her  own  selfish  desires. 
Certainly  a  protest  in  behalf  of  Poland 
would  never  have  come  from  the  German 
people.  Is  not  the  impotence  of  liberal 
sentiment  of  the  imperial  Reichstag  to 
prevent  the  execution  of  Prussian  iniq- 
uitous measures  in  Posnania  during  the 
last  decade  sufficient  proof  of  this?  On 
the  other  hand,  had  Russia  been  imme- 
diately and  overwhelmingly  successful, 
could  liberal  public  sentiment  in  France 
and  England  have  forced  the  czar's  gov- 
ernment to  do  the  square  thing  by  the 
Poles  ?  We  cannot  forget  the  remarkable 
words  of  Lord  Castlereagh  to  the  House 
of  Commons  after  his  return  from  the 
Congress  of  Vienna  in  1815.  His  com- 
ment upon  the  failure  to  resuscitate 
Poland  was  simply  this: 
28 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

There  was  undoubtedly^  a  strong  feeling  in 
England  upon  the  subject  of  independence  and 
a  separate  government  of  Poland :  indeed,  there 
was,  I  believe,  but  one  feeling,  and,  as  far  as  I 
was  able,  I  exerted  myself  to  obtain  that  ob- 
ject. 

Nothing  was  ever  done  for  Poland,  even 
at  the  time  of  the  events  of  1831, 1846,  and 
1863,  by  the  British  Government  and  the 
British  people. 

We  have  come  to  the  end  of  the  third 
year  of  the  war,  and  the  destinies  of 
Europe  are  still  in  the  balance.  But 
Poland  has  already  entered  again  upon 
the  map  of  Europe.  On  November  5, 
1916,  the  emperors  of  Germany  and  Aus- 
tria-Hungary, by  a  proclamation  at  War- 
saw, reconstituted  the  kingdom  of  Poland. 
It  is  true  that  this  was  a  war  measure,  and 
that  there  can  be  no  de  jure  Poland  until 
the  peace  conference  has  passed  upon  the 
question.  But  the  act  of  the  Central 
29 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

Powers,  who  are  in  possession,  constitutes 
a  de  facto  Poland  that  neither  group  of 
belhgerents  will  be  able  to  do  away  with. 
Poles  are  not  satisfied  with  the  Austro- 
German  proclamation,  which  did  not  settle 
the  frontiers  of  the  new  state,  and  which 
seemed  by  significant  omission  to  indicate 
a  determination  of  the  Central  Powers 
not  to  contribute  themselves  to  the  new 
kingdom.  Germany  has  said  nothing  at 
all  about  Posnania,  and  Austria-Hun- 
gary's declaration  of  fuller  autonomy  for 
Galicia  seems  to  signify  that  Galicia  is  not 
to  be  part  of  the  independent  Poland. 

The  Entente  Powers  lost  a  great  op- 
portunity through  their  inability  to  force 
Russia  to  forestall  the  Teutonic  offer. 
Even  after  it  was  made,  there  was  still 
opportunity  for  the  Entente  Powers  to 
unite  in  a  solemn  guarantee  to  assure  to 
Poland  unity  and  independence.  Since  it 
30 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

could  have  included  unity,  the  offer  would 
have  been  better  than  that  of  the  Central 
Powers.  But  Russia  remained  stubborn, 
and  the  telegrams  of  the  French  and 
British  premiers  and  the  proclamation  of 
the  czar  promising  united  Poland  "au- 
tonomy under  the  scepter  of  the  czars" 
were  pitiful  and  impotent  subterfuges. 
No  Pole  is  to  be  longer  fooled  by  Russian 
offers  of  "autonomy,"  and  the  only  guar- 
antee of  the  Entente  Powers  worth  the 
paper  it  was  written  on  would  be  the  col- 
lective guarantee  of  independence.  The 
Petrograd  Conference  "to  discuss  the  fu- 
ture organization  of  Poland  and  her  rela- 
tions with  the  Russian  Empire,"  an- 
nounced for  the  end  of  February,  1917, 
was  interrupted  by  the  Revolution  which 
overthrew  the  government  of  Czar  Nich- 
olas. One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  Provi- 
sional Government  was  to  proclaim  the 
31 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

principles  of  Polish  independence,  and  the 
Polish  members  of  the  Dmiia  resigned, 
claiming  that  there  was  no  longer  reason 
for  them  to  sit  in  a  Russian  Parliament. 
The  action  of  the  Provisional  Government 
remains  to  be  ratified  by  the  Russian  na- 
tion. Poles  will  suspend  judgment  until 
the  ratification  is  a  fact.  There  is  one  dis- 
quieting phrase  in  the  proclamation  of  the 
Provisional  Government.  After  stating 
that  "the  Polish  people  will  be  freed  and 
unified  and  will  determine  themselves  their 
form  of  government,"  the  proclamation 
goes  on  to  say,  "Attached  to  Russia  by  a 
free  military  union,"  etc.  If  the  Poles  are 
to  determine  their  form  of  government, 
they  must  not  be  bound  by  any  stipula- 
tions made  beforehand  by  Russia.  The 
term  "independence"  does  not  bear  quali- 
fication. 

The  Central  Powers,  on  the  other  hand, 
32 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

have  not  won  the  Poles  any  more  than  the 
Entente  Powers;  for  they  have  tried  to 
raise  an  army  among  the  Poles  before 
settling  the  territorial  and  political  status 
of  the  new  Poland,  and  they  are  opposed 
on  principle  to  the  Pohsh  ideal  of  united 
Poland.^ 

The  Poles  are  undoubtedly  placed  in  an 
extremely  embarrassing  and  delicate  situ- 

1  On  February  4,  1917,  the  Germans  and  Austrians  de- 
cided to  recognize  formally  a  provisional  Government, 
composed  of  Poles,  and  independent  of  Generals  Kuk 
and  Beseler.  The  Council  of  State  of  Poland,  created 
at  the  beginning  of  the  year,  now  enjoys  governing  au- 
thority. This  can  be  considered  as  a  victory  for  the 
Poles  in  their  determination  not  to  allow  the  Germans 
and  Austrians  to  hold  forth  a  fictitious  autonomy  as 
bait  for  raising  a  "Polish  army"  under  Austro-German 
control.  From  November  7  to  February  3  the  Poles 
were  successful  in  frustrating  the  German  schemes  of 
recruiting.  The  Council  of  State  seems  to  have  failed, 
owing  to  Austro-German  bad  faith.  The  Warsaw  Poles 
are  not  allowing  themselves  to  be  fooled.  Even  if  they 
do  raise  a  really  national  army  under  Austro-German 
auspices,  the  problem  of  United  Poland  still  remains. 
Only  Russian  Poland  is  now  "freed."  The  Poles  still 
have  before  them  the  task  of  winning  back  Posnania 
from  Germany  and  Galicia  from  Austria. 

33 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

ation.  Nearly  one  and  one  half  million 
Poles  are  fighting  on  opposing  sides,  and 
another  half  million,  of  militaiy  age,  are 
within  the  spheres  of  influence  of  the  two 
groups  of  belligerents,  and  are  being 
called  upon  to  take  arms  "against  the  op- 
pressor" in  "liberating"  armies.  What 
Sir  Roger  Casement  did  in  Germany  is 
being  done  to-day  among  prisoners  of  war 
in  all  the  prison  camps  of  Europe.  The 
invitation  to  treason  (for  it  is  treason  to 
fight  with  the  enemy  against  the  nation  of 
which  one  is  a  subject)  is  being  given  to 
Poles  everywhere.  The  invitation  is  cou- 
pled with  a  threat.  Both  sides  tell  the 
unhappy  Poles  that  if  they  do  not  now 
choose  to  "fight  for  Poland"  the  promises 
will  naturally  be  withdrawn.  As  Ger- 
many and  Austria  have  the  greatest  nimi- 
ber  of  Polish  prisoners  and  hold  virtually 
all  of  what  is  ethnographically  Polish  ter- 
34! 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

ritory,  the  danger  is  greatest  to  Poles  of 
Russian  subjection  who  are  at  present  at 
the  mercy  of  the  Central  European  Pow- 
ers. There  is  only  one  way  of  safety,  and 
that  is  for  the  Poles  to  stick  resolutely,  on 
technical  grounds,  to  their  present  alle- 
giance, and  not  to  spoil  the  future  by  act- 
ing for  one  or  the  other  of  the  belligerent 
groups.  The  people  of  Russian  Poland 
may  suffer  at  the  hands  of  Germany  by 
such  a  stand,  but  they  will  not  lose  in  the 
long  run.  For  if  they  are  loyal  to  Russia 
during  this  period  of  trial,  the  self-respect 
of  the  Allies  will  never  tolerate  putting 
them  back  again  under  Russian  slavery 
when  the  war  is  ended.  Similarly,  after 
what  has  happened  in  Ireland,  the  Eng- 
lish people  cannot  hold  against  the  Poles 
of  Galicia  and  Posnania  the  fact  that  they 
remain  loyal,  for  the  duration  of  the  war, 
to  Austria  and  Germany. 
35 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

All  the  world  is  longing  for  peace.  We 
must  begin  now  to  prepare  for  the  difficult 
task  of  making  peace.  A  durable  peace 
can  come  only  through  the  determination 
of  enlightened  men  throughout  the  whole 
world  to  see  that  justice  is  done  to  every 
race  involved  in  the  struggle.  Otherwise, 
another  treaty  of  Vienna  or  of  Berlin  will 
impose  upon  our  children  and  our  grand- 
children a  sacrifice  of  blood  and  treasure, 
and  a  burden  of  human  suffering,  similar 
to  that  which  we  are  making  and  bearing 
during  these  years  of  horror. 

Foremost  among  the  problems  to  be 
solved  is  that  of  the  future  of  Poland. 
There  is  only  one  satisfactory  solution — 
the  renascence  of  Poland  as  an  inde- 
pendent state.  Lovers  of  justice  and 
friends  of  peace  must  work  for  this  object 
with  all  their  heart  and  soul.  To  this  end, 
it  behooves  us  to  estabhsh  a  propaganda  of 
36 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

information,  free  from  bias  and  prejudice, 
so  that  the  reasons  for  this  only  safe  and 
just  solution  of  the  Polish  problem  be  put 
clearly  before  those  who  are  fighting,  and 
those  whose  sympathy  goes  out  to  the 
fighters  and  the  sufferers. 

There  are  four  considerations  that  we 
would  do  well  to  comprehend  and  ponder 
ov^er  in  connection  with  the  future  of 
Poland. 

1.  The  reconstituted  Polish  state  must 
not  be  made  subject  in  any  way  to  Russia. 

Notwithstanding  the  enormous  amount 
of  ink  that  is  being  used  these  days  to 
prove  that  Russia  is  the  "big  sister"  of  the 
Slavs,  it  is  certainly  not  true  in  connection 
with  the  Poles,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  it  is 
true  in  connection  with  any  Slavic  nation. 
We  cannot  bank  on  what  Russia  some  day 
may  become.  To-day  she  is  far  behind 
other  European  nations  in  civihzation,  and 
37 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

will  remain  so  as  long  as  eighty  per  cent, 
of  her  population  is  illiterate.  Her  Gov- 
ernment was  yesterday  a  corrupt  Oriental 
despotism,  and  what  it  will  be  to-morrow 
no  man  knows.  The  blood  of  her  people 
is  mixed,  and  the  Asiatic  strain  is  large 
and  recent.  During  the  period  of  consti- 
tutional development,  her  leaders  are 
bound  to  show  a  narrow  and  fanatical  na- 
tionalism, which  makes  impossible  under- 
standing of,  or  proper  relations  with,  a 
subject  nationality.  The  Poles,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  a  pure  Slavic  race,  who 
have  received  their  culture  and  laws  and 
religion  from  the  West.  They  have  noth- 
ing in  common  with  the  Russians.  As  a 
part  of  the  Russian  Empire  they  would 
prove  the  same  thorn  in  the  flesh  to  the 
Russians  of  the  twentieth  century  as  they 
have  been  to  the  Russians  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  After  the  experiment  of  the  last 
38 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

hundred  years,  it  is  unwise  to  yoke  to- 
gether again  two  nations  in  a  different 
stage  of  development,  of  different  back- 
ground, and  with  different  ideals,  making 
the  more  civilized  nation  the  political  in- 
ferior of  its  social  inferior.  It  may  be 
advanced  that  the  "guarantee  of  Europe" 
would  protect  autonomous  Poland  from 
Russian  bad  faith  and  aggression.  But  is 
bitter  experience  no  teacher?  In  a  great 
political  organism,  only  the  relative  fee- 
bleness of  the  predominant  nationality 
safeguards  the  autonomy  of  other  nation- 
alities. 

It  is  unsafe  for  the  future  of  Europe  to 
increase  the  dominions  of  Russia  toward 
the  west  by  the  extension  of  the  Russian 
sovereignty  over  German  and  Austrian 
Poland.  This  statement  needs  neither 
amplification  nor  argument  to  the  think- 
ing man. 

39 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

2.  The  reconstituted  Polish  state  must 
not  be  made  subject  in  any  way  to  Ger- 
many. 

Germany,  with  less  excuse  than  Russia 
(for  she  pretends  to  and  actually  does 
enjoy  a  far  higher  degree  of  civilization 
and  enlightenment ) ,  has  a  black  record  of 
arrogance  toward  and  intolerance  of  other 
nations  whose  legitimate  aspirations  have 
stood  in  the  path  of  her  pohtical  and  com- 
mercial expansion.  Her  good  faith  can- 
not be  depended  upon.  If  Poland,  either 
as  a  semi-independent  or  autonomous 
state,  is  placed  under  the  tutelage  of  Ger- 
many, the  Germans  will  leave  no  stone 
unturned  to  bind  the  Poles  hand  and  foot. 
Although  the  new  Polish  state  would  have 
al30ut  fifteen  million  inhabitants,  it  would 
stand  little  chance  of  resisting  Germany, 
for  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  Poles  follow 
agricultural  pursuits.  Their  industries 
40 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

and  commerce  are  almost  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  Germans  and  Jews;  so  they 
would  be  powerless  to  use  the  weapon  of 
economic  boycott  against  Germany,  and 
would  gradually  be  assimilated  by  their 
powerful  western  neighbor.  German 
statesmen  and  publicists  know  this  fatal 
weakness  of  Poland,  which  can  be  reme- 
died only  by  wholly  independent  national 
life.  The  Germans  have  studied  their 
trump-cards,  and  do  not  hesitate  to  under- 
take the  "management"  of  a  united  Po- 
land! 

The  suggestion  that  re-united  Poland 
be  made  a  constituent  member  of  the 
Hapsburg  dominions  is  equally  inimical  to 
the  realization  of  Polish  aspirations.  The 
present  war  has  irrevocably  committed 
Austria-Hungary  to  a  common  destiny 
with  Teutonic  Europe.  Vienna  and 
Budapest  will  continue  to  act  with  Berlin. 
41 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

3.  The  boundaries  of  the  reconstituted 
state  must  be  determined  not  on  historical 
grounds,  but  solely  by  conservative,  un- 
sentimental, ethnological  considerations, 
and  by  sound  economic  and  political  con- 
siderations. 

In  this  the  Polish  question  is  similar  to 
many  other  questions  that  will  come  before 
the  makers  of  the  new  map  of  Europe. 
The  most  perplexing  problem  of  forming 
national  boundaries,  of  reconciling  con- 
flicting national  aspirations,  is  that  of  irre- 
dentism.  Irredentism  is  a  term  used  to 
describe  the  desire  of  states  which  have 
come  into  existence  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury to  extend  their  boundaries  so  as  to 
include  adjacent  populations  of  the  same 
race  and  language  and  adjacent  territories 
which  were  in  the  past  "historically" 
theirs.  Most  of  the  later  states  that  have 
appeared  on  the  map  of  Europe  are 
42 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

strongly  influenced  by  irredentism.  Irre- 
dentism  is  the  cause  of  the  antagonism  and 
rivahy  between  the  Balkan  States.  Irre- 
dentism is  the  cause  of  Italy's  intervention 
in  the  war.  It  has  also  brought  Rumania 
into  the  war.  It  is  the  disease  which  dena- 
tured the  German  people.  It  is  the  rock 
upon  which  Poland  may  be  shipwrecked. 
In  solving  irredentist  difficulties,  it  is 
important  to  keep  two  facts  in  mind :  that 
nationahsm  is  a  product  of  the  nineteenth 
century;  and  that  the  formation  and  evo- 
lution of  political  organisms  has  been,  and 
always  will  be,  influenced  fully  as  much 
by  economic  as  by  racial  considerations. 
In  dealing  with  the  Balkan  problem,  I 
emphasize  the  cardinal  fact  that  the  vari- 
ous races  of  the  Balkan  peninsula  were 
subjected  to  the  Ottoman  yoke  centuries 
before  the  feeling  of  nationality  was  born 
in  the  European  races.  Therefore  any 
43 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

attempt  to  go  back  to  tradition  and  his- 
toric claims  in  the  formation  of  a  modern 
state  is  illogical  and  mischievous.  The 
Germans  found  this  to  their  cost  when 
they  annexed  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

They  sowed  the  seed  for  another  war. 
Will  Italy  attempt  to  saddle  herself  with 
a  similar  cause  for  inevitable  future  con- 
flict with  Teuton  and  Slav  by  trying  to 
annex  the  territories  at  the  head  of  the 
Adriatic?  Will  Rumania  persist  in  her 
hope  to  cross  the  Carpathians? 

One  reads  the  abimdant  literature  of 
Polish  nationalists  with  misgiving  and 
sinking  of  the  heart.  Poland  went  to  her 
downfall  as  an  independent  nation  by  re- 
fusing to  recognize  the  loss  of  territories 
on  the  west  and  northwest  through  the 
working  of  economic  laws,  and  by  diffus- 
ing her  energies  and  making  herself  vul- 
nerable through  the  extension  of  her  po- 
44 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

litical  system  over  eastern  and  southeast- 
ern territories  that  could  not  be  assimi- 
lated. In  the  last  generations  of  her  ex- 
istence she  went  on  the  principle  of  all  or 
nothing.  The  result  was  two  partitions 
and  nothing.  It  is  altogether  hopeless 
for  the  Poles  of  to-day  to  beheve  that  they 
can  include  in  their  new  Poland  all  their 
"historic"  territories.  No  cataclysm  of 
defeat,  whichever  way  the  fortune  of  war 
turns,  is  going  to  compel  Germany  and 
Russia  to  give  up  Silesia,  the  Prussian 
Baltic  coast  line,  Lithuania,  Volhynia,  and 
Podolia,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  the  Poles  can 
make  good  their  claim  to  the  eastern  por- 
tion of  Galicia.^     Even  if  economic  and 

1  The  Central  Powers  are  attempting:  to  limit  Poland 
on  the  east  and  northeast  by  constituting  Lithuania  into 
an  independent  kingdom,  which  it  historically  was  be- 
fore the  union  with  Poland.  Eastern  Galicia,  outside  of 
the  city  of  Lemberg,  is  overwhelmingly  Ruthenian  in 
population,  and  attached  to  the  Ruthenians  (Ukrainians) 
of  the  limitrophe  Russian  provinces.  The  Ukrainian 
movement  demands  the  separation  of  the  southwest  prov- 

45 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

political  considerations  do  not  militate 
against  the  Polish  claims  to  these  terri- 
tories, the  hard  facts  of  present  ethnologi- 
cal conditions  are  not  in  favor  of  Poles. 
Many  patriotic  Poles  who  read  these 
words  will  think  either  that  I  am  misin- 
formed and  an  ignoramus,  or  that  I  have 
at  heart  no  real  sympathy  with  or  under- 

inces  from  Russia,  including  the  cities  of  Kieff  and 
Odessa.  The  Ruthenians  or  Ukrainians  tell  us  that  they 
are  a  nation  distinct  from  both  Russians  and  Poles,  and 
far  greater  in  number  than  the  latter.  Like  the  Lithu- 
anians, they,  too,  have  their  history  of  days  before  the 
Polish  and  Russian  conquests.  When  we  go  into  the 
history  of  national  movements  in  eastern  Europe,  we  see 
that  Russia  is  as  much  a  composite  empire  as  is  Austria- 
Hungary.  If  the  demands  and  sufferings  of  these  races 
in  subjection  to  Russia  are  less  known  than  the  sim- 
ilar aspirations  and  persecutions  of  the  races  subject  to 
the  Hapsburgs,  it  is  only  because  they  have  been  less 
advertised.  In  the  first  month  of  the  Russian  Revolu- 
tion, a  surprisingly  large  number  of  Ukrainians  demon- 
strated in  the  streets  of  Petrograd,  demanding  that  their 
national  claims  be  recognized  by  the  new  Government. 
The  Russian  Socialists — at  present  in  control — favor 
federalism  as  the  underlying  princi])le  of  the  Russian 
republic,  and  are  inclined  to  encourage  national  revendi- 
cations  of  Ukrainians,  Armenians,  Georgians,  etc. 

46 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

standing  of  Polish  aspirations.  I  am  not 
able  here  to  elaborate  the  arguments 
against  unreasonable  Polish  irredentism. 
But  how  can  you  argue  with  the  man  who, 
when  you  point  out  to  him  that  the  popula- 
tion of  Dantsic  is  only  four  per  cent. 
Polish,  replies,  "We  have  been  under  the 
German  yoke:  now  they  must  taste  ours"? 
His  mind  is  fixed  not  only  upon  unreaH- 
ties,  but  also  upon  impossibilities.  Who 
is  going  to  force  Russia  and  Germany  to 
give  up  "historic"  Polish  territories,  and 
some  of  them  lost  centuries  before  the  first 
partition?  Certainly  not  the  Poles,  or  the 
rest  of  Europe  combined.  Never  in  the 
history  of  the  world  has  it  been  more  im- 
perative for  us  all  to  face  cold  facts  than 
it  is  to-day.  Irredentism,  except  where 
it  is  a  question  of  a  homogeneous  popula- 
tion whose  economic  interests  would  be 
favored  by  union  with  the  "mother  coun- 
47 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

try,"  has  nothing  in  common  with  facts 
and  logic. 

Possible  independent  Poland  would  in- 
clude about  two  thirds  of  Posnania  from 
Germany ;  the  kingdom  of  Poland,  includ- 
ing Khelm,  from  Russia;  and  Galicia,  ex- 
cluding the  eastern  territory  known  as 
Red  Ruthenia,  from  Austria.  It  is  con- 
ceivable that  the  issue  of  the  war  may 
compel,  or  persuade,  the  three  partitioners 
of  Poland  to  yield  these  territories  to  an 
independent  Polish  state. 

4.  The  reconstitution  of  Poland  as  an 
independent  state  is  not  only  a  wise  poli- 
tical step  in  establishing  a  durable  peace, 
but  is  also  an  act  of  justice  to  one  of  the 
largest  and  best  races  of  Europe,  which 
has  purchased  the  right  to  be  free  by  heroic 
sacrifices  willingly  made  and  by  the  ability 
amply  demonstrated  to  survive  and  thrive 
through  four  generations  of  persecution. 
48 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

Poland  is  the  best  example  of  the  wis- 
dom of  the  buffer-state  theory.  Russia 
and  Germany,  the  largest  and  most 
powerful  states  in  Europe,  have  been  en- 
deavoring to  expand  each  in  the  direction 
of  the  other.  The  j)artition  of  Poland 
was  long  held  to  be  the  bond  that  kept 
peace  between  them,  for  they  were  part- 
ners in  crime.  But  their  common  frontier 
eventually  brought  them  into  conflict. 
German  statesmen  and  publicists  have 
frequently  told  me  since  the  beginning  of 
the  war  that  the  underlying  as  well  as  the 
direct  cause  of  the  present  conflict  was  the 
ever-present  nightmare  of  the  Panslavic 
*' Westward-ho !"  and  that  the  Germans 
were  fighting  for  European  civilization 
against  "Asiatic"  invasion.  On  the  other 
hand,  Russian  polemicists  claim  that  the 
Teutonic  Drang  nach  Osten  is  the  basic 
cause  of  the  war,  from  the  point  of  view 
49 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

of  their  particular  national  interest.  If 
this  be  true,  as  far  as  the  issue  between 
Germany  and  Russia  is  concerned,  why 
not  restore  Poland  to  her  traditional  his- 
toric past  as  the  defender  of  Slavs  against 
Teutons,  and  the  outpost  of  Occidental 
Europe  against  invasion  from  the  East  ? 

The  creation  of  an  artificial  buffer  state, 
closely  allied  in  race  and  sj^mpathies  with 
one  or  the  other  of  the  rival  Powers,  or 
too  weak  to  resist  her  neighbors,  would  be 
a  makeshift  and  a  farce.  But  the  Poles 
are  neither  pro-German  nor  pro-Russian, 
nor  are  they  weak.  In  numbers,  in  brains, 
in  vitality,  in  wealth,  in  unity  of  spirit, 
they  are  stronger  to-day  than  ever  in  their 
historj^  and  as  an  independent  nation 
would  very  rapidly  become  the  seventh 
"Great  Power"  of  Europe.  In  consider- 
ing the  fitness  of  the  Poles  for  inde- 
pendence, it  is  just  as  absurd  to  hark  back 
50 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

to  the  weakness  and  the  faults  of  Poland 
of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies as  to  judge  Germany  and  Italy  of 
to-day  by  the  Germans  and  Italians  of 
two  hundred  years  ago.  It  is  what  the 
Poles  are  to-day  that  counts.  Poland 
was  partitioned  before  the  Poles  became  a 
nation.  Their  birth  as  a  nation  has  come 
in  the  period  of  bondage.  Now  they  are 
ready  to  break  the  bonds,  for  they  have 
arrived  at  the  age  of  manliood  which 
Talleyrand  prophesied. 

The  Poles  were  once  as  enlightened  and 
cultivated  a  people  as  any  in  Europe. 
They  have  come  back  to  their  former  place 
in  Galicia.  In  Posnania  they  have  con- 
founded every  effort  of  German  Kultur 
and  organization  to  assimilate  them,  and 
in  the  face  of  Prussian  Landtag,  Prussian 
officials,  and  Prussian  schoolmasters,  they 
have  gained  in  lands,  in  wealth,  and  in 
51 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  POLAND 

knowledge  of  their  own  language  and  lit- 
erature since  1898.  In  Russian  Poland 
economic  and  political  handicaps  have 
brought  an  increasing  degree  of  superi- 
ority in  wealth  and  culture  to  their  op- 
pressors. 

There  are  more  Poles  to-day  in  the 
world  than  ever  before,  and  their  fecundity 
is  unrivaled.  Their  national  feeling  was 
never  deeper-rooted  and  more  intelhgent. 
If  a  Pole  tells  you  he  is  in  favor  of  au- 
tonomy under  Germany  or  Russia  or  Aus- 
tria, he  is  lying  for  expediency's  sake,  or 
he  is  a  Jew,  or  he  has  some  narrow,  selfish 
business  interest  stronger  than  patriotism. 
The  Poles  want  only  one  thing,  and  that 
is  independence.  In  this  are  they  not  like 
every  other  nation  worth  its  salt?  Would 
you  not  despise  them  if  they  did  not  long 
for  that  which  you  yourself  hold  to  be  the 
most  precious  thing  in  the  world? 
6^ 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLAND 

"Are  you  a  patriot?"  said  Napoleon  in 
1810  to  John  Sniadecki,  rector  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Vilna, 

"Sire,"  answered  the  Rector,  "from  my 
birth  I  have  learned  to  love  my  country, 
and  her  misfortunes  have  only  strength- 
ened the  love  I  bear  for  her." 

After  an  additional  century  of  Poland's 
misfortunes,  her  children,  scattered  over 
the  whole  world,  would  give  the  same 
answer.  And  there  are  seven  times  as 
many  of  them  now  as  there  were  then. 


53 


THE  RECONSTRUCTION  OF 
THE  NEAR  EAST 

CONSTANTINOPLE:   PAWN  OR 
PRINCIPLE? 

"The  society  of  nations  must  hereafter  be 
based  upon  the  principle  of  the  equality  of  peo- 
ples and  their  right  to  govern  themselves  in 
accordance  with  their  aspirations,  without  be- 
ing molested  by  more  powerful  neighbors.  This 
is  the  thesis  of  the  Allies  as  well  as  of  Presi- 
dent Wilson.  The  organization  of  Europe  on 
the  basis  of  the  principle  of  nationalities  is  the 
negation  of  the  right  of  conquest.  The  Balkan 
populations  have  not  been  delivered  from  the 
Turkish  yoke  to  fall  under  German  guardian- 
ship."— Editorial  in  the  Paris  "Temps,^*  Janu- 
ary 29,  1917. 

FOR  some  years,  during  the  precious 
months  I  was  able  to  spend  in  Paris 
between  trips,  I  pursued  a  hobby  that  did 
not  put  money  in  my  purse  or  fresh  air  in 
my  lungs.     But  the  spell  of  it  held  me 
54) 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

even  after  the  outbreak  of  war.  Resi- 
dence and  travel  in  the  near  East  had 
awakened  interest  in  the  history  of  the 
Ottoman  Empire  and  Constantinople. 
There  was  not  the  leisure  to  wander 
through  centuries:  so  I  chose  the  period 
when  the  Osmanlis,  a  new  race  in  history, 
spread  their  power  through  the  Balkans 
and  closed  in  upon  the  capital  of  the 
Byzantine  Empire.  In  the  Bibliotheque 
Nationale,  from  nine  in  the  morning  until 
four  in  the  afternoon,  I  lived  in  the  four- 
teenth century.  Events  since  1914  are 
strikingly  reminiscent  of  that  period:  the 
anxiety  of  Europe  over  what  was  going  on 
at  Constantinople;  ambassadors  at  the 
Sublime  Porte  striving,  for  the  sake  of 
keeping  open  or  cutting  off  the  Black  Sea, 
to  win  to  their  side  the  nation  that  held 
the  key  to  the  straits;  the  occupation  of 
Tenedos  by  the  maritime  power  that 
55 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

would  brook  no  rival;  the  effort  to  reach 
Constantinople  by  way  of  Gallipoli  pen- 
insula; and  the  seizure  of  Saloniki  to  in- 
duce the  Greeks  to  march  on  the  side  of 
the  seizer.  Two  days  before  France 
mobilized  for  the  Great  War,  I  ordered 
from  my  German  bookseller  in  Paris  the 
latest  book  on  the  question  of  the  succes- 
sion to  Constantinople.  It  was  by  the 
Rumanian  minister  to  Belgium.  M. 
Djuvara  described  one  hundred  and  one 
schemes  that  had  been  conceived  and  elab- 
orated in  Europe  during  the  last  four 
centuries  to  take  Constantinople  from  the 
Turks,  and  put  the  Bosphorus  and  the 
Dardanelles  under  European  control. 

From  the  treaty  of  Kutchuk-Kainardji 
in  1774,  to  the  treaty  of  Berlin  in  1878, 
Russia  was  the  powerful  claimant  to  Con- 
stantinople. She  fought  three  wars  to 
attain  her  goal.  Against  Russian  preten- 
56 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

sions  stood  the  two  Occidental  Powers. 
Great  Britain  was  the  consistent  defender 
of  the  Turks.  France  maintained  an  atti- 
tude hostile  to  Russian  aspirations.  Even 
when  Xapoleon,  at  the  height  of  his  power, 
was  planning  to  divide  the  world  with 
Alexander,  he  could  not  reconcile  himself 
to  the  idea  of  jNIuscovite  domination  at  the 
place  where  Europe  and  Asia  meet. 

Since  1878,  new  defenders  of  Ottoman 
integrity  against  the  Russians  have  arisen. 
The  Central  European  Powers,  Italy, 
Austria,  and  Germany,  achieved  their  na- 
tional unity  in  the  two  decades  preceding 
the  treaty  of  Berlin.  Hemmed  in  on  the 
west  by  Great  Britain  and  France  and  on 
the  east  by  Russia,  born  too  late  to  extend 
their  political  sovereignty  over  vast  colo- 
nial domains,  and  unable  (if  only  for  lack 
of  coaling-stations)  to  develop  sea-power 
greater  than  that  of  their  rivals,  nothing 
57 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

was  more  natural  than  the  German  and 
Austro-Hungarian  conception  of  a  Drang 
nacli  Osten  through  the  Balkan  peninsula, 
over  the  bridge  of  Constantinople,  into  the 
markets  of  Asia.  The  geographical  posi- 
tion of  the  Central  European  states  made 
as  inevitable  a  penetration  policy  into  the 
Balkans  and  Turkey  as  the  geographical 
position  of  England  made  inevitable  the 
development  of  an  overseas  empire. 
Since  Lord  Beaconsfield  forced  the  treaty 
of  Berlin  upon  Russia  by  a  threat  of  war, 
British  foreign  policy  has  changed.  The 
integrity  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  became 
of  secondary  interest  to  the  British  from 
the  moment  they  gained  control  of  Egypt 
and  realized  what  the  Suez  Canal  meant  to 
them.  Gradually  Germany  and  Austria- 
Hungary  have  drifted  into  the  position  of 
protectors  of  Turkey.  For  France  made 
an  alHance  with  Russia,  the  traditional 
58 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

enemy  of  Turkey,  and  it  became  increas- 
ingly evident,  especially  since  the  Anglo- 
Russian  agreement  of  1907,  that  British 
statesmen,  in  sj^ite  of  the  pledge  implied 
in  the  occupation  of  Cypms,  no  longer 
held  as  sacrosanct  the  i^olicy  of  the  main- 
tenance of  Ottoman  integi'ity. 

Another  complication  has  developed  in 
the  question  of  Constantinople  since  the 
treaty  of  Berlin.  The  Balkan  Christian 
states,  created  to  be  dependent  upon  the 
Great  Powers,  asserted  their  independ- 
ence. Rumania  increased  in  population 
and  wealth.  Bulgaria  and  Greece  ig- 
nored the  limitations  imposed  upon  them 
territorially  and  politically  by  the  treaty 
of  Berlin.  Little  Montenegro  on  more 
than  one  occasion  defied  all  the  Powers. 
Serbia,  with  Russian  backing,  began  to 
make  trouble  for  Austria-Hungary,  and 
Serbian  and  Italian  irredentism  clashed  on 
59 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

the  Adriatic  littoral.  At  the  mouth  of  the 
Adriatic  Greek  aspirations  were  irrecon- 
cilable with  those  of  Italy.  The  war  that 
liberated  the  Christians  of  the  Balkans 
from  the  bondage  reimposed  upon  them 
by  the  treaty  of  Berlin  would  have  de- 
feated both  Austro-ITungarian  and  Rus- 
sian ambitions  had  not  the  war  broken  out 
over  the  partition  of  the  conquered  terri- 
tory. By  refusing  to  allow  Greece  and 
Serbia  and  Montenegro  to  divide  Albania, 
the  Great  Powers  were  directly  respon- 
sible for  the  second  Balkan  War.  Had 
Serbia  been  permitted  to  retain  the  outlet 
to  the  Adriatic  she  conquered  by  arms,  she 
would  not  have  broken  her  treaty  with 
Bulgaria,  and  Macedonian  territorial 
claims  could  have  been  adjusted.  By 
listening  to  the  remonstrances  of  Vienna 
and  Rome,  the  conference  of  ambassadors 
at  London  thought  they  w^ould  avoid  a 
60 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

European  war.     On  the  contrary,   they 
made  it  inevitable. 

No  impartial  student  of  the  diplomatic 
correspondence  during  the  momentous 
twelve  days  that  precipitated  the  war  can 
fail  to  attach  the  responsibility  for  the  out- 
break of  hostilities  to  Berlin  and  Vienna. 
The  evidence  published  by  the  Central 
Powers  alone — their  official  documents 
put  forth  in  the  form  of  special  pleading — • 
are  all  one  wants  to  refute  the  laborious 
defense  that  has  been  attempted  by  the 
German  polemicists.  Why  then  do  I 
speak  of  the  war  as  inevitable?  It  is  be- 
cause the  explanation  of  the  developments 
of  the  twelve  days  and  the  precipitation  of 
the  crisis  must  be  sought  in  events  that 
preceded  the  Sarajevo  assassination. 
War  does  not  arise  from  technicalities,  and 
from  the  ill  will  and  bad  faith  of  certain 
diplomats  during  a  few  days.  Let  us 
61 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

throw  aside  the  defense  of  the  German  and 
Austro-ITungarian  foreign  offices  during 
the  twelve  days — a  del'ense  weak  to  the 
point  of  absurdity.  Had  the  statesmen 
of  the  Central  Powers  justification  for 
adopting  —  perhaps  unconsciously  —  the 
uncompromising  attitude  that  Russia  must 
not  interfere  in  the  Austrian  punishment 
of  Serbia,  and  that  if  Russia  did  interfere, 
and  the  Great  War  was  precipitated,  it 
would  come  better  now  than  later,  since  it 
had  to  come?  The  Central  Powers  main- 
tained that  Serbia  was  a  foyer  of  Pan- 
slavic  propaganda,  which,  if  unchecked, 
would  menace  the  integrity  of  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Empire,  and  destroy  the 
power  of  Teutonic  Europe  to  keep  open 
the  path  to  the  East  and  to  defend  the 
Ottoman  Empire  against  Russia.  Were 
they  right,  or  were  their  fears  groundless? 
We  cannot  answer  this  question  yet;  for 
62 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

its  answer  depends  upon  whether  the  En- 
tente Powers  regard  Constantinople  in  the 
hght  of  principle  or  as  a  pawn. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury the  Ottoman  Empire  would  have 
gone  the  way  of  all  other  empires  the 
world  has  known  had  it  not  been  for  the 
rivalry  of  those  who  coveted  the  inherit- 
ance. Since  the  Congress  of  Vienna, 
Turkey  has  been  a  constant  source  of 
friction  in  European  international  rela- 
tions. Because  of  Turkey,  wars  have 
been  fought  and  alliances  formed  and 
shifted  that  influenced  the  destinies  of  na- 
tions which  had  no  interest,  directly  or 
indirectly,  in  the  fa(fe  of  Turkey.  States- 
men in  European  capitals,  in  the  endeavor 
to  solve  the  question  of  the  Orient  to  what 
they  believed  was  the  advantage  of  their 
own  nation  and  to  prevent  its  solution  to 
what  they  believed  was  the  advantage  of 
63 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

another  nation,  have  not  hesitated  to  play- 
navies  and  armies  on  the  diplomatic  chess- 
board, to  excite  ill  feeling  among  peoples 
who  had  no  reason  to  be  enemies  of  one  an- 
other, and  to  use  cynically  the  force  behind 
them  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  in  slavery 
the  small  Christian  races  of  the  Balkan 
peninsula  and  Asiastic  Turkey. 

One  would  be  unwilling  to  assert  that 
pubHc  opinion  in  any  European  nation 
knowingly  sanctioned  the  crimes  and 
knowingly  supported  the  blunders  of  the 
dij^lomats.  Governments  have  been  sus- 
tained in  their  fratricidal  strife  over  the 
Turkish  succession  because  the  public  has 
been  kept  in  ignorance  or  misinformed. 
One  is  astonished  at  the  lack  of  knowledge 
shown  by  the  people  who  create  govern- 
ments in  the  questions  their  representa- 
tives are  called  upon  to  face  and  solve. 
Parliaments,  also,  are  not  cognizant  of  the 
6^ 


CONSTANTINOPLE 
most  vital  issues  and  agreements  of  inter- 
national diplomacy.  One  almost  despairs 
of  the  working  of  democracy  when  he 
studies  European  diplomatic  history  since 
the  days  of  universal  suffrage.  The  only 
change  is  that  the  people  elect  their  auto- 
crats. The  men  they  have  elevated  to 
power  are  just  as  irresponsible  and  as  re- 
bellious to  democratic  control  as  were 
kings. 

One  can  go  beyond  the  statement  of  an 
ignorant  and  misinformed  electorate  to  set 
forth  the  ignorance  and  misinformation  of 
the  elected.  A  striking  illustration  of  this 
is  the  action  of  the  British  cabinet  when 
the  Russians  imposed  upon  Turkey  the 
treaty  of  San  Stefano.  To  destroy  this 
treaty,  the  British  were  willing  to  allow 
themselves  to  be  led  into  a  war  as  foolish 
and  as  futile  as  the  Crimean  War  had 
proved  to  be,  less  than  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
65 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

tury  before.  IB^consfield  and  Salisbury 
declared  that  they  had  come  back  from 
Berlin  bringing  peace  with  honor.  Yet 
it  was  not  long  until  Salisbury  confessed 
that  they  had  "backed  the  wrong  horse"! 
Freycinet  took  upon  himself  the  re- 
sponsibility of  depriving  France,  by  a  de- 
cision formed  from  imperfect  knowledge 
and  without  consultation,  of  the  work  of 
two  generations  in  Egypt  and  the  fruits 
of  the  vision  of  the  builder  and  backers  of 
the  Suez  Canal.  Ever  since  the  treaty  of 
Berlin,  France  and  Great  Britain  have 
been  badly  served  by  their  foreign  offices 
and  their  diplomatic  representatives  in  the 
Ottoman  Empire  and  the  Balkans. 

On  October  23,  1916,  Lord  Grey, 
speaking  at  a  luncheon  of  the  foreign 
newspaper  correspondents  in  London, 
said: 

In  what  spirit  is  the  war  being  conducted 
66 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

by  the  Allies?  We  shall  struggle  until  we  have 
established  the  supremacy  of  right  over  force 
and  until  we  have  assured  the  free  development 
in  conditions  of  equality  and  conformity  to 
their  own  genius,  of  all  the  states,  large  and 
small,  who  constitute  civilized  humanity.  .  .  . 
We  shall  continue  our  sacrifices  until  we  have 
assured  the  future  peace  of  the  whole  European 
continent. 

Although  the  apphcation  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  nationality  is  extremely  difficult 
in  countries  where  the  population  is  mixed, 
and  where  the  most  numerous  element  has 
neither  the  wealth  nor  the  education  of  the 
minority,  nor  the  minority's  bond  of  at- 
tachment to  a  neighboring  larger  state,  it 
is  manifest  that  if  an  equitable  and  durable 
peace  is  to  be  secured  within  every  exist- 
ing political  unit  and  in  each  natural  and 
economic  and  geographical  section,  the 
majority  must  be  considered.  Only  thus 
can  the  settlement  be  regarded  as  the 
67 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

triumph  of  right  over  force.  Otherwise 
nationahty  will  remain  as  it  has  been  in 
the  past  and  as  it  is  now — a  principle  to 
be  applied  where  it  is  to  the  interest  of  the 
dominant  group  of  belligerents  to  apply 
it,  and  to  be  disregarded  where  it  is  to  the 
interest  of  the  victorious  Powers  to  dis- 
regard it.  If  the  new  map  of  Europe  is 
to  be  made  by  right  and  not  by  force,  as 
Lord  Grey  and  all  other  French  and 
British  statesmen  have  asserted,  the  same 
principle  must  be  applied  everywhere. 
Not  only  would  it  be  a  mockery  of  justice, 
but  it  would  be  an  impugnment  of  the 
good  faith  of  the  Entente  Powers  before 
history  and  the  leaving  of  questions  un- 
settled for  another  test  of  arms  if  the 
aspirations  of  all  the  belligerent  Powers 
and  the  claims  of  all  the  little  states  are 
not  decided  upon  the  same  principle. 
Liberal  public  opinion  in  France  and 
68 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

Great  Britain  needs  to  be  enlightened  con- 
cerning the  Balkan  and  Turkish  settle- 
ments/    If    the    press    continues    to    be 

1  The  most  important  newspapers  in  France,  which 
are  read  by  the  elite  of  the  nation,  are  full  of  half-truths 
and  untruths  in  regard  to  the  condition  of  affairs  in 
eastern  Europe.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  no 
French  newspaper,  either  in  the  news  columns  or  edi- 
torially, has  presented  the  problems  of  the  Balkan  States 
and  of  Austro-Hungarian  and  Russian  subject  nation- 
alities in  accordance  with  the  facts,  as  they  are  com- 
monly known  by  students  and  travelers.  There  are 
many  thoughtful,  accurately  written,  and  clearly  devel- 
oped books  on  eastern  and  southeastern  Europe  avail- 
able in  the  French  language.  But  if  ever  read,  they  are 
now  forgotten,  and  editors  give  their  readers  amazing 
misinformation  about  Russia  and  Austria-Hungary  and 
the  Balkans.  The  quotation  from  the  Paris  "Temps" 
at  the  head  of  this  article  is  taken  from  an  editorial 
commenting  upon  a  recent  interview  given  by  Premier 
Bratiano  to  a  "Temps''  correspondent.  The  words  are 
noble,  and  we  subscribe  fully  to  the  elevated  sentiment. 
But  the  "Temps"  does  not  tell  its  readers  that  less  than 
half  the  population  of  Transylvania  and  only  a  third  of 
the  population  of  the  Bukowina  are  Rumanians,  and 
that  even  among  the  Rumanians  of  the  Dual  Monarchy 
only  a  small  class,  which  is  without  great  influence, 
wants  union  with  Rumania.  The  "Temps"  has  never  in- 
formed its  readers  of  the  nature  and  meaning  of  Rus- 
sian and  Italian  aspirations  in  the  Balkans,  and  of  the 
betrayal  of  the  principle  of  nationalities  by  French  and 
British  statesmen  to  satisfy  those  aspirations. 

69 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

muzzled  by  the  censorship  after  the  armis- 
tice is  signed,  and  if  the  delegates  who  go 
to  the  peace  conference  are  bound  by 
agreements  contracted  during  the  war  for 
the  sake  of  expediency  and  are  uncon- 
trolled by  the  democracies  they  represent, 
will  not  the  sacrifices  of  this  terrible  war 
have  been  in  vain?  The  happiness  of  the 
nations  of  the  Balkan  peninsula  and  of  the 
races  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  is  not  going 
to  be  secured  by  the  division  among  the 
victors  of  the  territories  in  which  they  live. 
The  worst  blunder  made  by  Entente  diplo- 
macy since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  in 
regard  to  the  near  East,  was  the  public 
statement  by  M.  Delcasse  that  Con- 
stantinople was  promised  to  Russia.  M. 
Trepoff,  prime  minister  of  Russia,  con- 
firmed this  statement  later  in  a  speech  to 
the  Duma.  Who  promised  Constanti- 
nople to  Russia,  and  why?  What  fair- 
70 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

minded  man  can  bl^me  Bulgarians  and 
Greeks  and  Turks  for  not  regarding  the 
Russian  menace  as  less  formidable  than 
the  German  menace?  The  Balkan  States 
do  not  wani  Austria-Hungary  in  Albania. 
But  neither  do  they  want  Italy  there.  It 
would  be  disastrous  for  them  to  have  Ger* 
many  in  Constantinople.  But  it  would  Be 
equally  disastrous  for  them  to  have  Russia 
there.  If  the  principle  of  nationality  calls 
Rumania  to  free  Transylvania  from  the 
Hungarians,  H  calls  her  with  equal  force 
to  free  Bessarabia  from  the  Russians.  If 
Rumania's  act  in  joining  the  Entente 
Powers,  following  a  similar  act  under 
similar  circumstances  and  for  similar  rea- 
sons by  Italy,  was  glorious  and  noble  and 
self-sacrificing,  why  should  Bulgaria's 
analogous  act  be  treason  and  felony? 
What  benefit  would  the  Greeks  derive 
from  the  possession  of  Smyrna,  across  the 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

sea  from  their  own  mainland  and  with  a 
large  luntcrland  to  be  defended,  if  they 
were  to  have  the  Italians  in  Epirus  and  the 
Russians  in  Thrace?  Greece  was  offered 
overseas  territory  at  the  expense  of  seeing 
great  Powers  installed  in  contiguous  terri- 
tory with  splendid  naval  bases. 

There  are  two  arguments  for  giving 
Constantinople  to  Russia:  (1)  Russia 
must  be  rewarded  for  her  help  in  crushing 
Germany,  and  the  Turks  punished  for  join- 
ing the  Germans;  (2)  Russia  is  hemmed 
in  on  all  sides,  and  has  a  right  to  con- 
trol her  sole  and  natural  outlet  to  the 
world.  Both  of  these  arguments  regard 
Constantinople  as  a  pawn,  and  both  reveal 
what  has  been  consistently  held  up  to  us 
as  the  typically  Prussian  point  of  view. 
The  mental  attitude  is  detestable :  for  it  is 
a  selfish  one,  and  does  not  take  into  con- 
sideration at  all  the  feelings  or  the  rights 
72 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

or  the  interests  of  otiiers.  The  reasoning 
is  inadmissible:  for  it  attacks  the  foun- 
dation of  international  morality  and  the 
only  possible  basis  of  a  stable  world 
peace. 

If  the  Turks  went  into  the  war  because 
they  were  wrongly  led  by  a  few  men  whom 
Germany  bribed,  they  are  to  be  pitied  in- 
stead of  punished.  The  way  to  correct 
the  evil  is  to  get  after  the  men  of  whom 
the  Turkish  nation  were  the  dupes,  and  not 
to  put  the  Turks  in  subjection  to  Russia. 
If  the  Turks  went  into  the  war  because 
they  felt  that  their  national  existence  was 
imperilled  by  Russian  schemes  of  aggran- 
dizement, they  had  as  much  right  to  take 
up  arms  as  France  had,  and  the  only 
reason  for  depriving  them  of  liberty  would 
be  right  of  conquest,  which,  up  to  this  time, 
has  been  the  justification  for  holding  alien 
races  in  political  bondage.  The  prev- 
73 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EASt 

alence  of  this  reasoning  in  the  peace  con- 
ference would  mean  that  this  war  will  go 
down  to  posterity  as  others  of  history — a 
struggle  for  booty,  which  the  victors 
shared.  If  Russia  ought  to  have  Con- 
stantinople because  she  helped  to  defeat 
Germany,  the  war  is  not  being  fought  in 
the  spirit  described  by  Lord  Grey  or  for 
the  ends  claimed  by  Lord  Grey. 

A  very  keen  Frenchman  recently  said 
to  me :  "You  do  not  realize  that  Russia  is 
a  vital  factor  in  our  hojie  and  determina- 
tion to  crush  Germany.  Therefore,  we 
must  keep  quiet  about  Poland,  and  we 
must  agree  to  Russia's  demands  in  the 
near  East.  Our  one  thought  is  the  safety, 
now  and  in  the  future,  of  France,  and  the 
necessities  of  the  situation  alone  guide 
the  near-Eastern  policy  of  the  Entente 
Powers." 

"But  is  not  this  the  Notwendigkeit  ar- 
74) 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

gument  of  Bethmann-Hollweg?"  I  re- 
monstrated. 

The  Frencliman  smiled  sadly.  "It  al- 
ways comes  to  that  in  war,"  was  his 
answer. 

The  second  argmnent  for  the  Russian 
occupation  of  Constantinople — and  this  is 
presented  most  strongly  to  the  French  and 
British  public — is  that  Russia  must  con- 
trol her  southern  outlet  to  the  sea.  The 
Pacific  outlet  is  thousands  of  miles  across 
the  continent  of  Asia.  The  Arctic  outlet 
is  ice-bound  during  the  greater  part  of  the 
year.  The  Baltic  outlet  is  at  the  mercy 
of  Germany.  The  lessons  of  the  present 
war  are  used  to  demonstrate  the  peril  of 
Russia's  windpipe  being  held  by  a  hostile 
Power.  It  is  argued  that  Russia  is  push- 
ing her  way  by  irresistible  economic  forces 
seaward,  and  that  if  she  does  not  get  now 
under  her  control  the  path  to  the  sea  she 
75 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

will  inevitably  disturb  the  world's  peace 
later  to  do  so.  A  prominent  liberal  and 
independent  review  in  England  recently 
published  an  article  which  proves — to  the 
satisfaction  of  its  writer — that  a  few  mil- 
lion people  in  the  way  of  a  great  and 
growing  nation  must  not  be  allowed  to 
disturb  the  bonds  uniting  the  British  and 
Russian  peoples.  The  Balkan  and  Otto- 
man races  must  be  made  to  understand 
that  they  cannot  block  the  way  to  the  re- 
construction of  Europe  along  the  lines  de- 
termined by  the  Entente  Powers.  Their 
geographical  position  makes  necessary 
subjection  to  Russia.  One  can  find  no 
difference  between  this  reasoning  and  that 
of  the  German  Wcltpolitik  champions. 
It  bears  the  stamp  of  Berlin  and  Leipsic 
and  Jena.  It  is  the  kind  of  argument  by 
which  the  Germans  justified  in  1864  the 
conquest  of  Schleswig-IIolstein,  and  plead 
76 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

to-day  for  the  permanent  inclusion  of 
Belgium  in  the  German  Empire.*  It  is 
the  underlying  motive  of  the  Austro-IIun- 
garian  conquest  of  Serbia.  The  weak 
must  stand  aside  for  the  strong! 

If  the  economic-outlet-to-the-]\Iediter- 
ranean  argument  is  a  justifiable  reason 
for  subjugating  alien  races,  and  bringing 
them  under  a  government  they  abhor,  and 
if  a  few  millions  must  bow  before  a  hun- 
dred millions,  the  retention  of  Triest  and 

1  Foreign  Secretary  Zimmerman,  in  the  note  to  neutral 
governments  of  January  31,  1917,  announcing  Germany's 
intention  to  initiate  unrestricted  submarine  warfare, 
said:  "As  regards  Belgium,  for  which  the  United  States 
has  warm  sympathy,  the  Imperial  Chancellor  declared  a 
few  weeks  previously  that  it  had  never  been  among 
Germany's  intentions  to  annex  Belgium."  But  we  can- 
not, unfortunately,  accept  this  statement  as  an  expres- 
sion of  German  public  opinion.  Long  before  the  war, 
German  historians  and  geographers  taught  that  Bel- 
gium was  a  part  of  Deutschtum,  and  would  eventually 
be  brought  within  the  German  Empire.  German  irre- 
dentism  is  like  Italian  irredentism  in  almost  every  par- 
ticular, origin,  causes,  reasons  of  late  development,  basis 
of  claims,  methods  of  propaganda  among  the  people. 

77 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Fiume  by  Austrians  and  Hungarians  is 
also  a  necessity,  and  the  Bosnia-Herze- 
govina annexation  of  1908  was  a  wise 
policy,  inspired  by  the  desire  to  assure  the 
peace  of  Europe !  Advocates  of  allowing 
Russia  to  take  Constantinople  declare  that 
they  are  backing  Russia  because  they  sin- 
cerely desire  to  reconstruct  Europe  along 
lines  that  take  into  account  economic 
necessities  and  that  are  laid  down  in  the 
view  of  avoiding  another  cataclysm  for  the 
next  generation  to  face  and  suffer  from. 
Very  good.  But  how,  then,  can  they 
logically  support  the  Adriatic  pretentions 
of  Italy  and  the  disappearance  of  German 
influence  in  the  Balkans  ?  If  they  do  sup- 
port both  Russian  and  Italian  claims,  they 
are  either  insincere  or  are  suffering 
through  the  bitter  passions  of  the  moment 
from  a  loss  of  the  j^ower  of  clear  thinking. 
The  argument  against  the  Russian  oc- 
78 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

cupation  of  Constantinople  are  unanswer- 
able. Only  those  who  adopt  the  German 
mental  attitude  or  who  are  so  anxious  to 
defend  the  Russian  point  of  view  that 
they  forget  they  are  at  the  same  time 
pleading  for  the  German  point  of  view, 
can  combat  them.  Since  the  war  began 
no  article  has  been  written  advocating 
Russia  at  Constantinople  which  has  not 
furnished  material  for  German  polemicists 
and  weapons  for  German  diplomats. 
The  harm  done  to  the  cause  of  the  Entente 
Powers  in  the  Balkans  by  thoughtless 
writers  in  Paris  and  London,  who  saw 
only  one  move  in  the  great  game  and  be- 
lieved they  were  helping  the  common  cause 
by  encouraging  Russian  aspirations,  has 
been  incalculable. 

Too  much  writing  about  Constantinople 
and  too  little  writing  about  Poland  gave 
the  German  propaganda  in  eastern  Eu- 
79 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

rope  and  southeastern  Europe  the  chance 
to  instil  doubt  of  the  good  faith  of  France 
and  Great  Britain.  Did  not  the  states- 
men of  the  Occidental  Powers  tell  the 
world  that  they  took  up  the  sword  in  de- 
fense of  small  nationalities?  It  is  because 
I  am  in  perfect  sympathy  with  the  ideal 
so  clearly  and  unequivocally  set  forth  by 
Lord  Grey  that  I  regard  the  arguments 
against  the  Russian  occupation  of  Con- 
stantinople as  unanswerable.  Lord  Grey 
said,  "We  shall  struggle  until  we  have 
established  the  supremacy  of  right  over 
force  and  until  we  have  assured  the  free 
development,  in  conditions  of  equality  and 
conformitj'-  to  their  own  genius,  of  all  the 
states,  large  and  small,  who  constitute 
civilized  humanity."  Unless  Lord  Grey 
believes  that  the  Balkan  States  and  the 
Ottoman  subject  races  do  not  form  a  part 
of  "civilized  humanity,"  he — and  all  who 
80 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

have  applauded  his  beautiful  and  soul-stir- 
ring setting  forth  of  the  cause  of  the  En- 
tente Powers — must  agree  that  the  argu- 
ments against  the  Russian  occupation  of 
Constantinople  are  unanswerable. 

Here  are  the  arguments.  I  speak  not 
from  books,  but  from  personal,  intimate 
knowledge  gained  by  years  of  travel  and 
residence  in  the  near  East. 

1.  There  is  not  a  single  element.  Chris- 
tian or  ^Moslem,  among  those  that  make 
up  the  population  of  the  Balkans  and  of 
the  Ottoman  Empire  that  desires  Russian 
sovereignty,  and  there  is  no  Russian  ele- 
ment at  all  in  Constantinople  or  anywhere 
around  the  straits.  Pro-Russians  do  not 
exist  in  the  near  East,  especially  in  Con- 
stantinople. In  virtually  every  other 
debatable  or  contested  territory  in  Eu- 
rope, I  have  found  partizans  of  the  Power 
or  Powers  that  were  ambitious  of  over- 
81 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

throwing  the  existing  political  status  to 
their  advantage.  Considerations  that 
make  partizans  are  religious,  political,  and 
economic.  Some  point  of  contact  is  found 
and  fostered  by  the  outside  propaganda. 
But  Russia  has  no  local  support  in  Con- 
stantinople. Xone  feels  that  his  par- 
ticular political,  religious,  or  economic 
interests  would  be  benefited  by  Russian 
occupation.  On  the  contrary,  the  most 
bitter  enemies  of  the  Turks,  and  those  who 
have  suffered  most  at  the  hands  of  the 
Turks,  never  hesitate  to  tell  you  frankly 
that  they  prefer  the  status  quo  to  a  change 
in  favor  of  Russia.  The  reasons  for  this 
are  easily  set  forth.  The  Turks  are  oc- 
casional oppressors.  While  they  can  be — 
and  sometimes  are — annoying  and  harm- 
ful through  arrogance  and  inefficiency  and 
maladministration,  for  the  most  part  and 
for  most  of  the  time  they  allow  Christian 
82 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

subjects  and  foreigners  as  much  liberty  as 
they  would  have  anywhere  else  in  the 
world  to  carry  on  their  business  and  amass 
wealth.  The  British  and  French  resi- 
dents are  of  this  opinion.^  In  Con- 
stantinople and  along  the  shores  of  the 
Bosphorus,  the  Sea  of  jNIarmora,  and  the 
Dardanelles  are  probably  as  many  people 
as  in  Serbia.  Just  as  strongly  as  the  Ser- 
bians do  not  want  Austro-Hungarian 
domination,  these  people  do  not  want  Rus- 
sian domination.  The  Entente  Powers 
are  fighting  to  free  Serbia.  We  applaud 
and  second  the  efforts  of  the  liberators. 
By  the  same  token,  Turks  and  Greeks  and 
Jews  and  Armenians  of  Constantinople 

1  It  is  possible  to  find  at  the  present  moment  former 
Constantinopolitans  of  French  and  British  nationality 
who  declare  that  Russia  must  have  Constantinople. 
They  do  this  from  the  mistaken  notion  that  the  interest 
of  their  nations  demands  this  sacrifice,  and  they  are 
looking  at  the  prohlem  from  the  point  of  view  of  Paris 
and  I,ondon.  The  statement  in  no  way  represents  their 
real  opinion  as  Constantinopolitans. 

8& 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

and  the  straits  can  cite  the  ideal  of  the 
Entente  Powers,  and  claim  our  sjnnpathy 
and  support  in  their  common  determina- 
tion not  to  undergo  the  Russian  yoke. 

If  we  consider  the  vital  interests  of  the 
people  of  Asia  JNIinor  and  the  Balkans, 
who  are  equally  unanimous  in  their  op- 
position to  Russia  at  Constantinople,  the 
two  millions  increases  to  a  formidable 
number  of  perhaps  thirty  millions. 
Rumania's  only  outlet  to  the  world  is 
through  the  straits,  and  Bulgaria's  prin- 
cipal outlet  is  through  the  straits.  The 
commerce  of  the  Greeks  is  largely  de- 
pendent upon  the  straits.  These  Balkan 
States  have  every  bit  as  much  reason  for 
not  wanting  to  see  Russia  at  Constanti- 
nople as  the  British  have  for  not  wanting 
to  see  Germany  at  Antwerp.  Who  would 
dare  to  assert  that  Russian  control  of  the 
straits  would  "assure  the  free  develop- 
84 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

ment,  in  conditions  of  equality  and  con- 
formity to  their  own  genius,"  of  the 
Balkan  States? 

2.  Russia  at  Constantinople  would 
make  impossible  a  logical  and  equitable, 
and  hence  a  durable,  establishment  of 
world  peace.  In  the  admirable  discourses 
of  MM.  Viviani,  Briand,  Poincare,  Lord 
Grey,  and  Messrs.  Asquith  and  Lloyd 
George,  there  is  a  plea  that  has  won  for 
the  Entente  Powers  world-wide  sym- 
pathy. We  are  taken  to  the  mountain- 
tops,  and  shown  a  new  era  of  world  his- 
tory, in  which  right  rules  in  the  place  of 
force.  We  have  not  regarded  the  dis- 
courses as  the  rhetoric  of  polemicists  and 
the  ideal  as  impracticable;  for  we  believe 
in  the  sincerity  of  the  speakers  and  in 
the  soundness  of  the  program  set  forth  by 
them  as  a  means  of  attaining  the  goal  for 
which  the  nations  they  represent  are  fight- 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

ing.  The  peace  they  intend  to  give  the 
world  will  be  durable,  because  it  is  to  be 
logical  and  equitable.  Therefore,  we  do 
not  consider  the  question  of  granting  Con- 
stantinople to  Russia  from  the  point  of 
view  of  mihtary  reward  or  expediency  or 
Russia's  own  interest.  It  is  a  matter  pri- 
marily of  Balkan  and  Ottoman  interest, 
and  secondarily  of  world  interest.  Is  a 
peace  that  means  Russian  sovereignty  of 
Constantinople  logical^  Is  it  equitable? 
It  is  not  logical.  The  sequels  of  past 
international  treaties  clearly  indicate  the 
fallacy  of  artificial  settlements  made  at 
the  point  of  the  bayonet.  When  a  nation 
accepts  a  peace  dictated  by  victorious 
enemies  along  the  lines  of  the  particular 
interests  of  the  victors,  it  is  simply  a  mat- 
ter of  yielding  to  force  majeure.  The 
preparation  for  the  day  of  revenge  begins 
immediately.  Let  us  not  forget  that  the 
86 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

war  broke  out  over  the  question  of  Serbian 
independence.  What  is  the  issue  between 
the  Entente  Powers  and  Gennany  in  re- 
gard to  Constantinople?  If  the  Entente 
Powers  are  fighting  to  prevent  Constanti- 
nople from  falling  into  Germany's  hands, 
and  to  save  the  Balkan  States  and  the 
Ottoman  Empire  from  subjugation  to 
Germany,  they  are  justified  in  their  action, 
from  the  world's  point  of  view,  and  are 
contributing  to  the  world's  peace  only  if 
they  refrain  from  using  their  victory  to  do 
exactly  what  they  fought  to  prevent  Ger- 
many from  doing.  The  allies  of  Russia, 
in  the  near-Eastern  theater  of  the  war, 
are  under  the  imperative  necessity  of  per- 
suading Russia  to  declare  her  disinter- 
estedness in  Constantinople.^     Otherwise, 

1  Whatever  excuse  of  expediency  may  have  dictated 
the  policy  of  Great  Britain  and  France  in  this  question, 
as  in  the  Polish  question,  up  to  March,  1917,  there  is  no 
excuse   since    the    Russian    Revolution   for   refusing   to 

87; 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

their  contention  that  they  are  fighting  for 
s.  durable  peace  breaks  down.  There  is 
no  durable  peace  for  the  near  East  in 
shutting  out  Germans,  Austrians,  and 
Hungarians  to  let  in  Russians.  There  is 
no  durable  peace  for  the  world  in  increas- 
ing the  Muscovite  power  in  Europe.  We 
have  dreams  of  a  regenerated,  democratic, 
civilized  Russia.  The  world  needs  that 
sort  of  Russia.     But   can  we  expect  it 

speak  out  frankly  upon  the  subject  of  the  future  of 
Constantinople.  What  is  the  solution  that  has  been 
agreed  upon  by  France  and  Great  Britain?  Why  was 
M.  Miliukoff  urged  by  Paris  and  London  to  stick  to  the 
old  agreement  made  with  the  Czar,  when  the  elements 
in  Russia  responsible  for  the  revolution  declared  that 
the  New  Russia  would  have  none  of  Constantinople  or 
any  other  conquest?  ]M.  IMiliukofF,  who  has  the  men- 
tality of  the  Young  Turks,  is  a  liberal  for  Russians — 
not  for  other  races.  His  aggressive  and  impenitent 
nationalism  almost  brought  Russia  to  civil  war  in  the 
second  month  of  the  new  regime.  M.  Kerensky,  Minister 
of  Justice,  made  a  categorical  statement  against  the 
continuation  of  the  Czarist  policy  of  conquests,  speci- 
fying Constantino])le  as  an  aspiration  Revolutionary 
Russia  could  not  sponsor.  M.  Miliukoff,  Minister  of 
Foreign    Affairs,    replied    that    Constantinoph    was    as 

88 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

after  a  triumphant  war  has  added  to  the 
empire,  already  so  large  that  its  demo- 
cratic evolution  is  seriously  handicapped, 
territories  inhabited  by  hostile  aliens?  If 
we  do,  we  are  believers  in  chimeras,  and 
deny  the  universal  experience  of  mankind. 
It  is  not  equitable.  Unless  we  are 
going  to  see  disappear  from  the  Great 
War  the  glamour  of  idealism,  principle, 
not  expediency  and  national  interest,  must 
be  kept  steadily  in  view  as  the  goal  of  the 
struggle.  The  statesmen  of  the  Entente 
Powers  interpret  the  spirit  in  which  their 
nations  are  fighting  and  the  spirit  in  which 
they  envisage  the  problems  of  peace  as  that 
of  right  and  justice.  They  have  set  out 
to  overthrow  militarism,  to  disprove  the 

much  the  dream  of  New  Russia  as  of  Old  Russia.  Tliis 
led  to  M.  Miliukoff's  dismissal,  and  an  oflicial  declara- 
tion to  Russia's  allies  and  the  world  that  Russia  now 
desired  a  peace  "without  annexations  and  without  in- 
demnities." 

89 


RECX)NSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

obnoxious  axiom  that  might  goes  before 
right.  They  are  not  fighting  for  them- 
selves, but  for  humanity.  They  are  the 
defenders  of  small  nationalities.  Very 
well,  then.  In  their  agreement  not  to 
sign  a  separate  peace,  the  Entente  Powers 
must  have  laid  down  as  the  basis  of  the 
peace  the  right  of  every  nation,  once  freed 
from  the  German  yoke  and  the  German 
menace,  to  decide  its  own  destinies. 

France  and  Great  Britain  are  the 
splendid  examples  of  nations  that  have 
developed  to  their  present  degree  of  civili- 
zation and  enlightenment  because  they 
have  evolved  through  many  generations 
into  democracies.  By  arms  the  two  peo- 
ples have  overthrown  their  autocrats  and 
defended  their  soil  from  alien  domination. 
They  have  frequently  had  to  repeal  in- 
vaders. Each  has  tried  to  conquer  the 
other.  Within  the  memory  of  the  present 
90 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

generation  they  have  been  on  the  verge  of 
war.  They  have  gone  through  a  laborious 
period  of  interior  assimilation,  civil  wars, 
anarchy,  that  extended  through  centuries. 
For  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen  to  cite 
the  antagonism  between  the  Balkan  races, 
and  the  events  of  the  last  thirt\'^  years 
since  the  power  of  Turkey  was  weakened 
in  the  Balkan  peninsula,  as  reasons  for 
putting  the  Balkan  States  under  foreign 
domination  or  "protection,"  is  illogical 
and  unfair.  Do  they  expect  babies  to  be- 
come men  without  passing  through  the  pe- 
riod of  childhood,  and  then,  forgetting 
their  own  slow,  painful,  uncertain  devel- 
opment, are  they  going  to  declare  the  right 
of  others  to  potential  manhood  forfeited 
because  of  the  faults  of  childhood  ?  Great 
Britain  could  never  have  become  what  she 
is  to-day  if  France  had  controlled  her  des- 
tinies. Nor  could  France  have  become 
91 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

what  she  is  to-day  under  British  guidance. 
Do  French  and  British  beheve  that  it  is 
equitable  to  attempt  to  force  Russian 
domination  upon  the  races  of  the  near 
East?  Certainly  not!  I  can  hear  now 
Premier  Viviani's  ringing  words :  "Every 
small  nation  has  the  right  to  live  its  own 
life,  and  it  is  the  glory  of  France  that  we 
are  going  into  this  war  to  defend  Serbia 
and  Belgium  from  the  German  covetous- 
ness."  And  Mr.  Asquith,  "We  shall  not 
lay  down  the  sword  until  we  have  estab- 
lished a  just  peace  on  the  basis  of  the  lib- 
erty of  small  nations." 

In  the  reconstruction  of  Europe,  if  Con- 
stantinople is  to  be  regarded  in  the  hght 
of  principle  and  not  as  a  pawn,  the  Great 
Powers,  when  they  come  to  the  peace  con- 
ference, will  adopt  the  formula  of  Lord 
Grey  in  dealing  with  the  Balkans  and  the 
Ottoman  Empire,  just  as  they  will  adopt 
92 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

that  formula  in  dealing  with  Belgium, 
Poland,  and  the  Slavic  elements  of  Aus- 
tria-Hungary. Heretofore,  in  every  in- 
ternational conference  since  the  Congress 
of  Vienna  set  the  example  of  the  strong 
using  the  weak  as  paw^ns,  unfortunate 
subject  races  have  seen  their  national  as- 
pirations discussed  and  decided  wholly  on 
grounds  of  expediency  and  of  the  interest 
of  the  big  fellows  who  acted  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  might  was  right. 

The  Great  Powers,  after  each  war, 
have  remade  the  map  of  Europe  with- 
out the  slightest  regard  for  the  principle 
of  the  "free  development,  in  conditions 
of  equality  and  conformity  to  their  own 
genius,  of  all  the  states,  large  and  small." 
Poles  and  Finns,  Czechs  and  Cro- 
atians,  Serbians  and  Bulgarians,  Greeks 
and  Rumanians,  Turks  and  Arabs, 
Armenians  and  Syrians,  have  seen  the 
93 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

lands  in  which  they  Hve  and  their  na- 
tional aspirations  used  as  pawns.  Dip- 
lomats have  put  them  forward  to  block 
the  game  of  other  diplomats,  and  sacri- 
ficed them  without  compunction,  when 
they  thought  there  was  any  advantage  in 
doing  so.  With  the  exception  of  Wad- 
dington,  the  French  representative  at  the 
Congress  of  Berlin,  there  has  not  been  in  a 
hundred  years  a  representative  of  a  Great 
Power  at  a  peace  conference  who,  in  ac- 
tion as  well  as  word,  was  insi:)ired  in  the 
slightest  degree  with  the  spirit  Lord  Grey 
has  set  forth  as  that  which  imbues  the 
Entente  Powers  in  the  present  hour. 
Many  diplomats,  even  at  peace  confer- 
ences, have  spoken  beautiful  words  about 
the  little  fellows;  but  their  vote  has  in- 
variably shown  cynical  and  deliberately 
calculated  selfishness. 

If  there  is  to  be  any  change  in  the  spirit 
94 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

and  in  the  result  of  the  next  peace  con- 
ference, it  will  come  only  through  the 
adoption  of  Lord  Grey's  noble  ideal  as  a 
basis  of  settlement.  The  great  nations 
will  consider  the  interests  of  the  little  na- 
tions as  they  consider  their  own  interests, 
and  they  will  regard  national  aspirations 
and  national  revendications  in  the  light  of 
principle,  judging  all  alike  and  refuse  to 
play  weaker  nations  as  pawns.  This  is 
ideahsm,  this  is  humanitarianism,  this  is 
self-abnegation;  and  I  suppose  many  who 
read  these  lines  will  laugh  at  what  they 
call  my  naivete.  But  I  have  a  right  to 
view  the  near-Eastern  question  from  the 
idealistic  point  of  view:  for  the  Entente 
Powers  have  struck  that  keynote.  They 
must  hold  to  it  and  not  be  carried  away 
by  the  lust  of  conquest.  Otherwise  their 
children  and  ours  will  weej)  the  bitter  tears 
we  are  weeping  to-day,  and  bear  anew 
95 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

the  grievous  burdens  of  the  present  gener- 
ation. 

An  exiled  Napoleon,  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  a  mihtary  machine  about  which 
things  were  felt  and  written  a  hundred 
years  ago  curiously  like  what  is  being  felt 
and  written  to-day,  did  not  bring  peace 
and  harmony  to  Europe.  No  more  will 
an  exiled  kaiser  and  the  collapse  of  the 
Prussian  militarism  bring  peace  to-day. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  discount  the  in- 
dignation that  demands  chastisement  and 
reparation  for  what  has  happened  since 
1914.  For  I  have  lived  in  the  midst  of 
the  suffering  since  the  first  day  of  the  war, 
and  know  what  it  means.  But  the  viola- 
tion of  Belgian  neutrality,  and  the  brutal 
reign  of  terror  visited  upon  an  unoffend- 
ing people  through  the  German  invasion, 
was  not  to  me,  as  to  most  of  those  who  saw 
and  wrote,  an  unprecedented  event  in  con- 
96 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

temporary  armals,  and  the  beginning  of 
the  horrible  precipitation  of  Europe  into 
hell.  It  was  not  a  new  story.  It  was 
only  another  chapter  in  a  story  that  had 
been  unfolding  for  some  years,  and  of 
which  I  have  been  an  eyewitness.  Only 
those  were  surprised  and  shocked  who  did 
not  know  about  the  earlier  chapters.  In 
1909,  in  one  city  of  Asia  JNIinor,  I  saw 
within  a  few  days  more  civilians  butchered 
than  have  been  killed  in  all  of  Belgium 
during  more  than  two  years  of  war.  The 
Armenians  were  just  as  much  under  the 
treaty  protection  of  the  European  Powers 
as  were  the  Belgians.  Not  a  single 
Power  that  had  signed  the  Treaty  of 
Berhn  made  an  official  protest  to  Turkey. 
From  1904  to  1914,  the  near  East  was  in 
a  turmoil.  What  was  the  attitude  of 
European  diplomacy?  Disregard  of  the 
legitimate  aspirations  of  small  nations; 
97 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

indifference  to  human  suffering  through 
war  and  oppression;  the  making  of  every 
move  in  negotiations  for  the  advantage 
of  the  movers,  and  with  never  a  thought 
of  the  interest  of  the  moved.  Students 
of  history  in  the  face  of  a  world  war  must 
adopt  the  attitude  of  physicians  in  the 
face  of  an  epidemic.  If  physicians  hmit 
their  attention  to  specific  cases,  and  think 
only  of  curing  the  disease  when  it  mani- 
fests itself,  they  keep  getting  new  cases. 
To  stamp  out  the  disease  they  must  hunt 
for  the  germs.  A  regenerated  Germany, 
or  a  Germany  chastised  and  powerless, 
will  in  no  way  destroy  the  germs  that  make 
for  war.  International  diplomacy  must 
be  born  again  in  the  spirit  of  Lord  Grey's 
program.  International  diplomacy  must 
renounce  the  spirit  of  self-seeking,  and  re- 
make Europe  in  such  a  way  as  to  "assure 
the  free  development,  in  conditions  of 
98 


CONSTANTINOPLE 

equality    and    conformity   to   their   own 
genius,  of  all  nations,  gi'eat  and  small." 

As  in  the  case  of  Poland,  so  in  the  case 
of  the  Balkans  and  the  Ottoman  Empire. 
The  Entente  Powers,  at  the  end  of  the 
third  year  of  the  Great  War,  have  come 
to  the  parting  of  the  ways.  If  they  stick 
by  their  original  program,  and  hold  fast 
to  the  ideals  that  have  made  their  cause 
precious  to  lovers  of  humanity  throughout 
the  world,  there  is  glorious  hope  for  the 
future,  and  they  cannot  expect  to  keep 
and  increase  the  sympathy  and  support  of 
neutral  nations — a  sympathy  and  support 
that  gi-ows  more  precious,  invaluable  in- 
deed, as  the  European  conflict  reaches  its 
climax.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
are  tempted  by  lust  of  conquest  engen- 
dered in  the  heat  of  conflict,  or  if  they 
yield  to  expediency,  so  easily  confused 
with  right  when  every  nerve  is  strained  to 
99 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

win,  the  durable  peace  becomes  a  castle  in 
Spain.  Lovers  of  France  and  the  advo- 
cates of  Anglo-Saxon  solidarity  ought  to 
urge  with  all  their  heart  and  soul  that  Con- 
stantinople be  considered  in  the  light  of 
principle  and  not  as  a  pawn.  It  is  only 
one  of  several  issues  where  a  choice  has  to 
be  made.  But  Constantinople  is  in  its 
potentialities  the  most  important  issue, 
and  in  its  umnistakable  clearness  the  test 
issue. 


100 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

In  the  fourteenth  century,  the  West  had  al- 
ready begun  to  try  to  impose  its  commerce,  its 
customs,  its  laws,  and  its  religion  on  the  East. 
There  was  not,  nor  has  there  ever  been  since, 
a  sympathetic  "give  and  take"  between  Occi- 
dent and  Orient.  In  a  mint,  if  the  coin  when 
stamped  does  not  correspond  exactly  to  the 
mold,  it  is  rejected.  Similarly  the  West,  when 
it  tries  to  put  every  Eastern  people  through 
its  mold  and  finds  no  exact  correspondence,  re- 
jects. Hence,  on  the  one  side,  the  scorn  of  as- 
sumed superiority:  on  the  other  side,  a  hatred 
not  only  born  of  fear  and  of  conviction  of  in- 
feriority in  material  things,  but  of  a  sense  of 
injustice  which  is  none  the  less  vital  from  a 
knowledge  that  the  wrong  is  not,  and  will  not 
be,  righted. — The  Foundation  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire,  page  132. 

DURING  the  thousand  years  between 
the  battle  of  Tours  and  the  battle 
of   Vienna,   which   marked  the   extreme 
101 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

advance  of  Islam  in  western  and  eastern 
Europe,  JMohamniedan  states  and  ]Mo- 
hanimedan  races  were  a  constant  menace 
to  the  security  and  prosperity  of  Europe, 
because  of  their  military  strength,  their 
control  of  the  ISIediterranean,  and  the 
temptation  alliance  with  them  afforded  to 
European  states  to  strike  at  one  another  to 
the  detriment  of  Christianity  and  civiliza- 
tion. In  the  decadence  of  Islam,  Moham- 
medan states  have  remained  a  menace  to 
the  develojjment  of  European  civilization 
and  to  international  harmony  and  under- 
standing. Their  flags  no  longer  float 
on  the  Mediterranean.  Their  military 
power  is  broken.  But  their  very  impo- 
tence makes  them  more  dangerous  than 
ever  before.  They  are  more  susceptible 
to  diplomatic  intrigues.  Their  defense- 
lessness  has  kept  whetted  the  territorial 
appetite  of  the  European  Powers.  Some 
102 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

choice  morsels  have  already  been  de- 
voured: Russia  was  eating  steadily  until 
she  reached  Ai-menia  across  the  Caucasus 
in  1878;  and  France  and  England  did  not 
stop  for  half  a  century  until  Tunis  was 
consumed  in  1881  and  Egypt  in  1882; 
Austria  revived  the  European  traditions 
of  the  generation  before  in  Bosnia-Herze- 
govina in  1908;  Italy  and  France  in  Trip- 
oli and  Morocco  in  1911. 

And  after  the  present  war — what  more? 
Russia  already  has  her  hands  on  the  rest 
of  Armenia,  and  has  publicly  stated  that 
her  allies  have  "awarded"  to  her  Constan- 
tinople in  the  future  treaty ;  French  public 
opinion  claims  Syria;  Great  Britain,  en- 
sconced in  JNIesopotamia,  making  des- 
perate efforts,  has  reached  Bagdad ;  Persia 
is  the  scene  of  bitter  struggles  between  the 
belligerents,  none  of  whom  have  paid  the 
slightest  attention  to  Persian  protests 
103 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

against  the  violation  of  her  neutrality; 
Italy  makes  no  secret  of  her  intentions 
in  regard  to  Albania,  and  is  credited  with 
ambitions  in  Macedonia  to  the  detriment 
of  Bulgaria  and  Greece;  and  Germany, 
with  one  foot  on  Belgium  and  the  other 
on  Serbia,  declares  her  own  territorial 
disinterestedness,  and  claims  to  be  the 
protector  of  the  integrity  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire,  and  the  sole  friend  left  to  Islam. 
When  one  is  writing  on  a  special  phase 
of  a  complex  problem,  there  is  danger  of 
over-emphasis,  of  exaggerating  the  im- 
portance of  the  particular  phase  under 
consideration.  Perhaps  it  would  be  as 
na'ive  and  as  oblivious  to  a  multitude  of 
issues  to  say  that  the  present  war  arose 
in  the  near  East  as  to  say  that  Great 
Britain  came  into  the  war  to  defend  the 
principle  of  Belgium's  neutrality.  And 
yet  the  history  of  international  relations 
104 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

during  the  last  hundred  years  shows  in 
almost  every  decade  the  decisive  influence 
of  the  question  of  the  devolution  of  JNIo- 
hammedan  lands  in  the  foreign  policy  of 
the  Great  Powers.  Who  can  deny  that 
the  Eastern  question,  created  by  the  deca- 
dence of  Islam  and  kept  in  the  foreground 
of  diplomatic  preoccupations  by  the  fear 
of  each  Power  that  every  other  Power 
was  trying  to  "get  in  on  the  ground 
floor"  in  IMohammedan  countries,  has 
been  the  principal  factor  in  European 
alliances  and  European  conflicts  since  the 
Congress  of  Vienna? 

Xapoleon's  lack  of  success  in  holding 
Alexander  after  the  Tilsit  interview;  the 
impairment  of  the  Holy  Alliance  over  the 
questions  raised  by  the  War  of  Greek 
Independence;  the  policy  of  England  to- 
ward France  in  regard  to  JNIohammed 
Ali;  the  Crimean  War  and  the  treaty  of 
105 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Paris;  French  intervention  in  Syria;  Bis- 
marck's bribe  to  Russia  in  1870;  the  atti- 
tude of  England  and  Austria  toward 
Russia  in  the  Turkish  War  of  1877  and 
the  Congress  of  Berhn;  Italy's  entrance 
into  the  Triple  Alliance  after  France  took 
Tunis;  the  Anglo-French  Agreement  of 
1904,  with  Egypt  and  JNIorocco  as  the 
principal  "compensations";  the  Anglo- 
Russian  Agreement  of  1907,  for  which 
Persia  paid  the  piper;  Russia's  use  of  her 
opportunity  in  Serbia  after  Austria- 
Hungary  annexed  Bosnia  and  Herze- 
govina; the  effect  of  maritime  considera- 
tions upon  Italy's  international  relations 
when  she  found  herself  in  TripoH  and 
Rhodes;  the  change  in  the  attitude  of  the 
Balkan  States  toward  one  another  when 
the  Powers  imposed  the  Albanian  embargo 
— had  these  events  no  part  in  preparing 
and  precipitating  the  Great  War?  Are 
106 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

they  not  exercising  a  potent  influence 
upon  the  course  of  the  war?  Shall  we 
not  have  to  go  back  to  them,  and  take 
them  into  account,  in  the  reconstruction  of 
Europe?  To  put  Prussian  militarism  in 
the  place  of  the  devolution  of  Moham- 
medan territories  as  the  summum  malum 
from  which  Europe  is  suffering  does  not 
augur  well  for  the  world's  hope  of  a 
durable  peace. 

I  have  already  written  on  the  problem 
of  Constantinople  and  its  relation  to  the 
Eastern  question.  Italy  and  the  Balkan 
balance  of  power  will  be  dealt  with  later. 
The  bearing  of  the  Islamic  problem  upon 
the  Eastern  question  has  an  importance 
all  of  its  own.  Here  we  have  the  aspira- 
tions of  Mohammedan  races,  independent 
and  under  European  control,  and  the 
sufferings  and  hopes  of  Christian  races 
still  in  subjection  to  ^Mohammedans.  The 
107 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 
difficulties  that  will  arise  in  connection 
with  acting  justly  and  wisely  toward  these 
races  of  the  near  East  when  their  claims 
come  before  the  peace  conference,  and  the 
adoption  of  a  pan-European  policy  toward 
the  problem  of  the  Idialifate,  are  questions 
of  vital  importance  in  the  reconstruction 
of  Europe. 

We  do  not  know  how  many  ^Moslems 
there  are  in  the  world.  It  is  impossible 
to  arrive  at  even  approximate  figures. 
Missionaries  and  travelers  speak  "in 
round  numbers,"  sparing  or  generous  with 
millions  to  such  an  extent  that  the  student, 
astounded  and  bewildered  by  the  dis- 
crepancies in  estimates,  becomes  skeptical 
of  statistics.  In  many  parts  of  Asia  and 
Africa  the  absence  of  data  upon  which  to 
compute  population  (much  less  the  re- 
ligions professed  by  the  people!)  puts  es- 
timates of  Mohammedan  totals  into  the 
108 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

field  of  speculation.  But  where  the  popu- 
lation of  states  or  regions  has  been  com- 
piled by  government  officials  who  have 
facts  to  go  upon,  and  where  that  popula- 
tion is  preponderously  JMoslem,  fairly 
reliable  estimates  are  possible.  Such  is 
the  case  along  the  Mediterranean  littoral 
of  Africa,  in  a  few  African  protectorates, 
in  Russian  and  portions  of  Asiatic  Russia, 
in  India,  and  in  the  Dutch  East  Indies. 

A  conservative  estimate  of  Moslems 
under  European  rule  or  effective  Euro- 
pean protection  gives: 

Great  Britain 85,000,000 

Holland 30,000,000 

Russia   17,000,000 

France 15,000,000 

There   are    also    Moslems   owning   al- 
legiance to  Germany,  Italy,  Spain,  Por- 
tugal, and  the  United  States  in  colonies, 
and  to  Austria-Hungary  and  the  Balkan 
109 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

States  directly  as  citizens;  but  their  num- 
ber is  not  large  enough  to  call  for  a  definite 
Mohammedan  colonial  policy. 

The  INIohammedan  question,  from  an 
international  point  of  view,  is  not  a  com- 
plicated one  for  Holland.  Her  Moslems 
are  on  islands  and  their  relations  with 
JNIohammedans  of  independent  states  and 
the  colonies  and  protectorates  of  other 
European  Powers  can  easily  be  con- 
trolled. Great  Britain,  Russia,  and 
France,  on  the  other  hand,  cannot  divorce 
the  problem  of  Islam  from  their  general 
colonial  and  foreign  policy.  Their  unique 
position  in  the  jNIohammedan  world  was 
one  of  the  compelling  forces  that  gave 
birth  to  the  Triple  Entente.  The  neces- 
sity, perhaps  unconsciously  divined,  of 
standing  together  to  protect  their  Moham- 
medan interests  led  them  to  compound 
colonial  rivah"ies.  Thus  "the  next  Euro- 
110 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

pean  war"  showed  a  grouping  of  Powers 
verj"  different  from  that  which  the  observer 
of  European  affairs  might  reasonably  have 
prophesied  at  the  beginning  of  the  twen- 
tieth century.  In  1900,  Great  Britain 
was  not  yet  ready  to  abandon  to  Germany 
the  title  of  defender  of  the  integrity  of 
the  Ottoman  Empire,  and  British  states- 
men were  in  a  frame  of  mind  to  look  upon 
France  and  Russia,  rather  than  upon  Ger- 
many and  Austria,  as  the  disturbers  of  the 
world's  peace  who  had  to  be  fought  and 
cured  of  unliealthy  ambitions/     The  new 

1  This  statement  needs  no  confirmation  to  those  who 
followed  the  British  press  between  1898  and  1902.  But, 
as  memories  are  so  short  these  da\'s,  I  shall  give  just  one 
quotation.  An  editorial  in  the  London  "Daily  Mail." 
November  9,  1899,  said:  "The  French  have  succeeded 
in  wholly  convincing  John  Bull  that  they  are  his  invet- 
erate enemies.  England  has  long  hesitated  between 
France  and  Germany.  But  she  has  always  respected 
German  character,  while  she  has  gradually  come  to  feel 
scorn  for  France.  Nothing  in  the  nature  of  an  entente 
cordlale  can  exist  between  England  and  her  nearest 
neighbor.  France  has  neither  courage  nor  political 
sense."    Mr.  Harmsworth  [the  present  Lord  NorthcliflfeJ 

111 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

orientation  of  British  foreign  policy  began 
in  1902,  and  was  determined  by  the  French 
Agreement  of  1904  and  the  Russian 
Agreement  of  1907. 

Most  Russian  INIoslems  are  Russian 
subjects.  They  form  compact  masses  in 
southern  and  southeastern  Russia,  the 
Caucasus,  the  Transcaspian  district,  Cen- 
tral Asia  (with  Turkestan),  and  the  pro- 
tectorates of  Khiva  and  Bokhara.  Al- 
though Russian  ^Moslems  are  in  contact 
with  their  coreligionnaires  in  Turkey, 
Persia,  Afghanistan,  and  India,  they  have 
no  pronounced  separatist  tendencies,  and 
have  not  been  a  source  of  anxiety  to  Russia 
except  in  the  Caucasus  and  on  the  Persian 
frontier.  On  the  other  hand,  Russia  has 
used  her  Moslems  to  make  trouble  for 
Great  Britain  and  Turkey.  During  the 
first  decade  of  the  twentieth  century,  Tur- 

was  then,  as  now,  carrying  on  what  he  likes  to  call  "a 
campaign  of  education"  among  his  fellow-countrymen ! 

112 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

key  conducted  an  agitation  against  France 
from  Tripoli  and  Egypt.  But  the  Italian 
and  Senussi  wars  have  shut  off  French 
Moslems  from  Cairo  and  Constantinople 
for  the  last  five  years.  Only  upon  Great 
Britain  is  the  necessity  imposed,  as  it  has 
been  since  the  beginning  of  her  imperial 
policy,  of  watching  Islam  in  every  place 
where  Islam  is  indigenous.  Great  Britain 
cannot  afford  to  be  ignorant  of  any  ques- 
tion, of  any  movement,  that  affects  Islam. 
East  Africa  and  Zanzibar  and  Somaliland 
come  into  contact  with  Arabia,  West 
Africa  with  the  Sudan  and  Tripoli,  Trip- 
oli and  the  Sudan  with  Egypt.  Egypt  is 
adjacent  to  Arabia  and  Turkey.  The 
Malay  states  and  Ceylon  are  in  com- 
munication with  Java  and  Sumatra  and 
with  India.  India  comes  into  contact 
with  Central  Asia  and  by  Afghanistan  with 
Persia.  Aden,  the  Persian  Gulf  states, 
113 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

and  Baluchistan  are  invariably  affected  by 
events  in  Turkey  and  Arabia  and  IMeso- 
potamia.  Moslem  penetration  into  Cen- 
tral Africa  has  become  a  subject  of  study 
and  reports  on  the  part  of  Nyassaland  and 
Rhodesian  officials.  It  is  not  beyond  the 
province  of  British  prudence  to  watch 
Islam  in  Siam,  and  to  wonder  how  many 
Moslems  there  are  in  China. 

The  establishment  of  the  French  pro- 
tectorate over  IMorocco  in  1912  left  very 
little  of  the  Moslem  world  outside  of  Eu- 
ropean control  or  "protection."  The  five 
remaining  JMohammedan  countries,  all  of 
them  except  Afghanistan  struggling  at 
the  present  moment  to  prevent  being  sub- 
jugated by  Europe^  have  an  approximate 
Mohammedan  population  as  follows: 

Ottoman  Empire  (includ- 
ing Arabia)    14,000,000 

Persia    9,000,000 

Afghanistan    5,000,000 

114 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

Tripoli       (with      Senussi 

hinterland)    700,000 

Albania    500,000 

Albania  is  occupied  militarily  by  Aus- 
tro-Hungarian,  Italian,  and  Bulgarian 
armies.  The  Italians  have  a  foothold  at 
several  places  on  the  coast  of  Tripoli,  and 
had  secured  European  acknowledgment 
of  "annexation"  before  the  Great  War 
broke  out.  Russians,  British,  and  Turks 
are  fighting  in  Persia,  where  the  two 
former  have  not  been  able  to  maintain 
the  cynically  established  "spheres  of  in- 
fluence" of  1907.  Turkey  is  a  belligerent, 
allied  to  the  Central  Powers  and  Bulgaria. 

European  states  have  come  into  conflict 
with  Islam  and  with  one  another  through 
commercial  and  political  expansion  into 
Mohammedan  countries.  The  history"  of 
international  diplomacy  in  the  Islamic 
world  is  an  unbroken  record  of  bullying 
and  blundering  on  the  part  of  all  the 
115 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Powers.  In  governmental  policies  one 
searches  in  vain  for  more  than  an  occa- 
sional ray  of  chivalry,  uprightness,  al- 
truism, for  a  consistent  line  of  action  in 
attempting  to  solve  the  problems  that 
were  leading  Europe  from  one  war  to 
another,  for  constructive  statesmanship. 
European  cabinets  used  the  aspirations  of 
Christian  subject  races  to  promote  their 
own  ends  against  one  another,  and  to 
threaten  Turkey.  Then,  for  fear  of  sacri- 
ficing what  they  thought  they  had  gained, 
foreign  offices  and  ambassadors  allowed 
the  wretched  Christians  to  be  massacred 
for  having  dared  to  respond  to  European 
overtures  and  to  put  faith  in  promises  of 
protection  held  out.  European  diplo- 
macy inspired  Abdul-Hamid  to  make 
Panislamism  a  political  propaganda,  thus 
denaturing  one  of  the  most  promising 
and  beautiful  religious  revivals  of  Islam. 
116 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

"When  the  diplomats  saw  their  mistake, 
they  tried  to  wrest  away  the  weapon  they 
had  put  in  the  sultan's  hands,  and  to  use 
it  against  one  another.  In  their  eagerness 
to  thwart  one  another  and  to  win  conces- 
sions and  colonies  for  their  own  countries, 
there  was  alternate  bullying  and  fawning 
ad  nauseam.  The  idea  of  the  "universal 
khalifate"  is  wholly  foreign  to  INIoham- 
medan  genius  and  traditions.  It  ema- 
nated from  the  brains  of  European  states- 
men whose  knowledge  of  JNIohammedan 
laws  and  history  was — to  say  the  least — 
vague. 

The  indictment  of  European  diplomacy 
in  the  near  East  is  terrible:  one  might 
even  say  that  it  seems  incredible.  But 
there  are  a  dozen  thoroughly  documented 
treatises  on  the  Eastern  question,  available 
in  all  large  libraries,  to  which  the  reader 
of  independent  judgment  who  wishes 
117 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

corroboration  of  my  assertions  may  go. 
And  do  not  the  facts,  as  set  forth  in  com- 
pact text-books  of  nineteenth-century  Eu- 
ropean history,  speak  for  themselves? 
From  Vienna,  1815,  to  Bukharest,  1913, 
has  the  concert  of  European  Powers,  or 
any  one  Power,  maintained  a  consistent, 
or  shown  an  altruistic,  jjolicy,  in  deal- 
ing with  the  emancipation  and  devolution 
of  Mohammedan  territories?  Has  there 
been  a  traditional  grouping  of  the  Powers, 
some  as  champions,  others  as  oppressors 
of  small  nationalities?  What  Power  has 
not  played  the  game  of  encouraging  Chris- 
tians under  the  IVIohammedan  yoke,  and 
then  abandoned  them  to  their  fate,  in  order 
not  to  offend  INIohammedan  sentiment? 
The  evolution  of  Serbia,  of  Rumania,  of 
Bulgaria,  of  Greece,  of  Crete;  the  suffer- 
ings of  Armenia  and  Syria;  the  anarchy 
of  Ai'abia ;  the  vacillating  policy  in  Egypt 
118 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

and  northern  Africa ;  the  intrigues  at  Con- 
stantinople; the  handling  of  Persia  and 
Afghanistan,  give  us  the  formula  of  Eu- 
ropean di^^lomacy.  It  is  this:  selfish 
national  interest  endeavoring  to  thwart 
other  selfish  national  interests.  Fre- 
quently events  have  proved  that  the  dis- 
trust which  led  to  wars  and  to  threats  of 
wars  was  unfounded.  In  France  and 
Great  Britain  public  opinion,  when  en- 
lightened, has  sometimes  called  for  a  po- 
hcy  dictated  by  justice  and  inspired  by 
humanity;  but  such  a  policy  has  not  been 
adopted. 

One  might  remonstrate  that  it  is  un- 
gracious and  profitless  to  recall  the  regret- 
table past,  now  that  we  are  in  the  midst 
of  a  war  of  glorious  idealism,  when  the 
sins  of  the  ancestors  are  being  dearly  paid 
for  in  human  blood,  and  when  the  world 
is  moving  irresistibly  toward  a  peace  that 
119 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

will  rectify  the  injustices  of  nineteenth- 
century  diplomacy.  But  this  is  precisely 
why  we  need  to  set  forth  clearly  the  issues 
that  are  at  stake,  and  to  study  the  means 
of  avoiding  the  old  pitfalls  and  of  securing 
the  triumph  of  the  principles  for  which 
millions  are  giving  their  lives.  Since  we 
hope  that  this  war  will  bring  about  a 
general  liquidation  of  the  political  ills  from 
which  mankind  is  suffering,  the  fate  of 
Mohammedan  races  and  of  Christian 
races  calling  for  emancipation  from  Mo- 
hammedan rule  must  perforce  interest 
us  as  much  as  the  fate  of  Belgium  and 
Serbia.  Both  gi'oups  of  belligerents,  in 
response  to  President  Wilson's  note,  while 
declaring  that  there  is  no  necessity  for 
American  mediation,  make  an  official 
"bid"  for  American  sympathy  and  sup- 
port in  establishing  a  iiost-helliim  world 
status  upon  the  principles  of  justice  and 
120 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

liberty  for  all  nations,  especially  for  small 
and  weak  nations.  If  we  want  to  get  a 
world  vision,  then,  of  a  world  peace,  it  is 
incumbent  upon  us  to  acquaint  ourselves 
with  extra-European,  as  well  as  with  Eu- 
ropean, problems. 

The  relations  of  Europe  with  Islam,  the 
future  of  the  khalifate,  the  devolution  of 
INIohammedan  territories,  the  status  of 
emancipated  Christians — we  want  to  know 
what  the  belligerents  have  in  mind  as  a 
solution  of  these  questions,  which  affect 
vitally  the  bases  of  a  durable  peace.  I  am 
able  to  treat  them  here  only  in  outline, 
trusting  that  the  reader  will  be  moved  to 
seek  the  catalogue  of  his  library  or,  better 
still,  to  consult  his  librarian.  In  America 
the  library  catalogue  is  a  treasure-house 
tliat  needs  no  key,  and  the  librarian  is 
the  able  and  indispensable  ally  of  the 
schoolmaster  and  the  publicist.  Since  this 
121 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

is  so,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  attempt  to  trace 
in  a  few  paragraphs  several  factors  in  the 
reconstruction  of  Europe  that  are  un- 
fortunately too  little  in  the  public  mind. 

Europe's  attitudes  toward  islam 

A  recent  manifesto  of  American  educa- 
tionalists and  clergymen,  which  was 
quoted  widely  in  the  French  and  British 
press,  condemned  the  action  of  Kaiser 
Wilhelm  in  trying  to  arouse  Islam  against 
his  enemies.  The  condemnation  is  just, 
for  Kaiser  Wilhelm,  as  a  Christian  mon- 
arch, is  faithless  in  this  action  as  in  many 
others  to  the  true  interests  of  Christianity 
and  European  civihzation.  But,  unfortu- 
nately, he  has  only  followed  the  traditional 
policy  of  Christian  monarchs,  from 
Francis  the  First  of  France  to  his  own 
gi-andmother.  Queen  Victoria.  Ever 
since  the  Turks  set  foot  in  Europe,  the 
123 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

Ottoman  sultans  have  been  solicited  to 
give  their  aid  to  Christians  against  Chris- 
tians, and  have  been  brothers-in-arms  of 
French  against  Spanish  and  Germans, 
French  against  English  and  English 
against  French,  French  and  English 
against  Russians,  French  against  Aus- 
trians  and  Austrians  against  French, 
Italians  against  one  another,  and  of  each 
Balkan  race  in  internecine  strife.  In 
Asiatic  and  African  expansion,  during  the 
last  half -century,  Germany  has  been  the 
latest  comer  in  the  dangerous  and  treach- 
erous game  of  European  Powers  trying  to 
use  JNIohammedan  fanaticism  to  menace 
one  another.  The  most  striking  examples 
are  Russian  intrigue  against  Great  Britain 
in  Afghanistan,  and  French  intrigue 
against  Great  Britain  in  Eg\^pt.  "\^^lo 
does  not  remember,  only  a  decade  ago, 
the  agitation  of  the  British  press  over 
123 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Russia's  policy  in  regard  to  India  and  the 
Persian  Gulf,  and  the  powerful  support 
the  Young  Egyptian  agitation  received  in 
France  ? 

The  movement  for  a  jMohammedan  re- 
naissance took  form  during  the  period  be- 
tween the  Crimean  and  Russo-Turkish 
wars.  Its  leaders,  Al  Afghani,  Al 
Ivawakebi,  Sheik  INIohammed  Abdu,  and 
Ahmed  Khan,  were  inspired  by  religious, 
and  not  political,  ideals.  They  saw  that 
the  decadence  of  Islam  could  be  checked 
only  by  a  spiritual  awakening,  which  fol- 
lowed and  was  nourished  by  an  intellectual 
awakening.  They  wanted  to  revive  the 
old  glory  of  IMohammedan  learning,  and 
to  create  a  spirit  of  solidarity  among 
Moslems  such  as  they  believed  existed 
among  Christians.  Ahmed  Khan,  in 
India,  laid  emphasis  upon  education, 
spread  not  only  by  schools,  but  by  books 
124 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

and  reviews;  Sheik  INIohammed  Abdu,  in 
Egypt,  worked  for  the  casting  aside  of 
uncanonical  doctrines  and  traditions  and 
customs  with  which  Islam  had  become 
encrusted,  and  which  he  declared  would 
prevent  the  regeneration  of  Islam;  Al 
Afghani  traveled  far  and  wide,  preaching 
Mohammedan  unity  and  solidarity,  and 
founding  societies  and  newspapers  to  pro- 
mulgate his  ideas ;  and  Al  Kawakebi  gave 
his  life  to  denouncing  the  evils  from  which 
Islam  was  suffering  and  pointing  out  the 
remedies. 

It  would  be  idle  to  speculate  upon  the 
influence  Panislamism  would  have  had, 
and  the  development  it  would  have  taken, 
had  it  come  fifty  years  earlier.  But  aris- 
ing when  it  did,  the  movement  was  a  cause 
of  uneasiness  and  alarm  to  the  European 
Powers  who  had  been  and  were  still  grab- 
bing IMohanmiedan  countries,  and  also  to 
125 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Sultan  Abdul-Hamid,  the  beginning  of 
whose  reign  was  marked  by  the  hiiniihat- 
ing  defeat  at  the  hands  of  Russia  and  the 
imposition  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin.  Eu- 
ropean diplomacy  looked  upon  Pan- 
islamism  as  a  menace  to  the  success  of 
the  plans  of  extension  of  sovereignty  over 
JNIoslem  countries.  Hamidian  diplomacy 
feared  that  Panislamism,  taken  up  by 
the  Arabs  and  centered  around  Mecca, 
might  be  used  by  the  European  Powers  to 
foment  a  separatist  movement  in  the 
distant  parts  of  the  Ottoman  Empire. 
There  was,  then,  a  common  opposition  on 
the  part  of  the  Turkish  khalif  as  well  as 
of  Christian  statesmen  to  the  spread  of  the 
Panislamic  movement.  But  the  fear  of 
guilty  European  consciences  gave  Abdul- 
Hamid  an  idea.  He  put  himself,  as 
klialif,  at  the  head  of  the  Panislamic 
movement,  and  saw  in  it  the  means  of 
126 


EUROrE  AND  ISLAM 

carrying  on  a  political  propaganda 
throughout  the  whole  iVlohamniedan 
world.  Panislamism  w^as  to  bring  about 
the  revival  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  in  all 
its  ancient  glory  and  power.  Abdul- 
Hamid's  agents  penetrated  everywhere. 
The  sultan  began  to  work  on  a  railway 
from  Damascus  to  the  holy  cities  of  Islam 
which  would  transport  pilgrims  to  and 
from  ^lecca  through  Turkey. 

Abdul-Hamid  would  not  have  succeeded 
in  gaining  power  and  prestige  from  his 
Panislamic  propaganda  had  the  policy 
and  intentions  of  European  Powers 
toward  JNIohammedan  states  and  INIoham- 
medan  races  been  honorable  and  just. 
For  then  they  need  have  feared  no  dissatis- 
faction where  their  control  was  already  es- 
tablished, and  need  have  had  no  anxiety 
about  the  regeneration  of  Islam  in  inde- 
pendent states.     They  would  have  wel- 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

corned  any  movement  working  for  reform 
and  for  democracy.  They  would  have 
seen  in  Panislamism,  if  generously  aided 
by  them  to  keep  its  original  spirit,  a  force 
that  might  rehabilitate  Islam,  and  enable 
Mohammedan  races  to  follow  in  the  path 
of  European  races  to  self-government,  in- 
dependence, and  vigorous  national  life. 
But  that  is  precisely  what  the  men  who 
guided  the  foreign  and  colonial  policy  of 
European  states  did  not  want,  precisely 
what  they  have  always  been  willing  to 
precipitate  wars  to  prevent.  To  prepare 
INIohammedan  colonies  and  protectorates 
for  self-government,  to  strengthen  and 
help  to  rehabilitate  weak  Asiatic  and 
African  states,  that  would  be  sheer  mad- 
ness! Not  only  would  commercial  and 
13olitical  advantages  be  lost,  but,  if  the  hold 
already  acquired  on  INIohammedan  coun- 
tries was  lessened  or  released,  and  if  op- 
128 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

portunities  were  allowed  to  pass  to  get  a 
hold  on  the  remaining  independent  JNIo- 
hammedan  countries,  some  other  Power 
would  not  be  so  squeamish.  No  Power — 
not  one — was  squeamish.  The  result  is 
that  virtually  every  INIohammedan  coun- 
try in  the  world  has  been  treated  by  Eu- 
ropean nations  as  Belgium  and  Serbia  and 
Poland  have  been  treated.  Their  wrongs 
cry  out  to  Heaven  to  be  redressed,  their 
aspirations  cry  out  to  the  sense  of  fairness 
and  justice  of  all  mankind  to  be  heard. 
In  a  similar  position  are  the  Christian 
races  still  waiting  to  be  emancipated  from 
the  Ottoman  j^oke.  If  the  wrongs  are  not 
known,  it  is  because  the  world  is  ignorant 
of  and  indifferent  to  things  that  happen 
"far  away";  if  we  are  less  familiar  with 
the  aspirations  of  Asiatic  and  African 
JNIohammedan  and  Christian  nations  than 
we  are  with  the  aspirations  of  certain  sub- 
129 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

ject  races  in  Europe,  it  is  because  selfish 
political  interest,  and  not  humanitari- 
anism,  is  to-day  the  motive  power  behind 
championship  of  small  nationalities  in 
every  single  belligerent  country  of  Eu- 
rope. 

Panislamism  was  neither  fanatical  nor 
political  in  its  inception.  It  need  not 
have  become  so  in  its  development.  It  did 
not  have  in  it  the  danger  the  European 
statesmen  suspected,  and  as  a  powerful 
influence  throughout  the  INIohammedan 
world  that  could  be  w^ielded  as  he  chose 
by  the  Turkish  sultan,  Panislamism  was 
a  chimera,  an  absurd  unreality.  The  dis- 
illusionment of  Germany  in  the  present 
war  has  proved  that  European  statesmen 
have  long  been  slaves  of  a  mythical 
Frankenstein,  the  creation  of  their  own  in- 
trigues and  imaginations.  Aside  from  the 
radical  divisions  of  Sunnites  and  Sheahs, 
130 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

there  are  numerous  other  sects  in  Islam. 
The  followers  of  IMohammed  are  no  more 
united  in  religious  belief  and  ecclesiastical 
affiliation  than  are  the  followers  of  Christ. 
In  fact,  the  bonds  in  Islam  are  so  loose,  the 
ideals  so  democratic,  the  foundations  so 
lacking  in  hierarchical  tradition  and  pos- 
sibilities, that  Islam  does  not  enjoy  the 
spirit  of  unity,  does  not  possess  the  ele- 
ments of  solidarity. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  we  must  guard  against  inter- 
preting the  failure  of  Islam  to  march  with 
Turkey  in  the  Holy  War  as  a  proof  of 
love  and  loyalty  of  Moslems  to  their  Eu- 
ropean masters,  and  also  against  denying 
the  existence  of  a  Panislamic  sentiment 
in  regard  to  Europeans.  In  densely  igno- 
rant and  remote  and  savage  countries, 
which  have  no  national  history,  the  sec- 
tators  of  Mohammed  bear  no  grudge 
131 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

against  the  foreigners  who  rule  them. 
The  loyalty  and  evident  good-will  of  the 
Sudanese  to  the  British,  of  which  I  have 
written  recently,  is  striking  proof  of  this. 
Senegalese  loyalty  to  France  is  another 
proof.  But  in  Egypt,  Arabia,  Turkey, 
Persia,  and  Albania,  frangi  (the  Arabic 
word  includes  all  Europeans)  are 
anathema.  The  dislike  and  distrust  of 
Europeans  is  general,  and  no  distinction 
is  made  by  the  mass  of  the  people  between 
Europeans  of  this  or  that  particular 
Power.  They  are  all  frangi.  The  dislike 
and  distrust  have  come  to  include  native 
Christians,  who  lived  for  centuries  in  com- 
parative peace  under  INIohammedan  rule. 
The  reason  of  the  xenophobia  is  the  belief 
that  European  political  and  commercial 
activity,  manifested  by  the  presence  of 
foreigners  in  INIohammedan  countries,  is 
actuated  solely  by  the  desu'e  to  exploit  the 
132 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

natives;  and  the  reason  of  fanaticism 
toward  indigenous  Christian  elements  is 
the  belief  that  their  fellow  Christians  are 
conspiring  with  European  governments  to 
dispossess  them.  I  am  not  holding  a  brief 
for  the  reasonableness  of  the  jMoham- 
medan  attitude.  I  am  simply  stating  the 
fact. 

It  does  no  good  to  utter  disclaimers,  and 
to  argue  that  the  Mohammedans  are  labor- 
ing under  a  misapprehension.  If  this  war 
is  to  solve  the  question  of  the  Orient,  the 
peace  conference  must  prove  to  the  Mo- 
hammedan world  by  acts,  and  not  by  high- 
sounding  phrases,  the  intention  of  Europe 
to  put  local  jNIohammedan  interests  ahead 
of  European  interests  in  jNIohammedan 
countries:  by  (1)  abstaining  from  parti- 
tioning or  bringing  under  direct  European 
sovereignty  what  countries  of  the  Moslem 
world  have  succeeded  so  far  in  escaping 
133 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

the  territorial  greed  of  the  Great  Powers ; 
and  (2)  taking  upon  themselves  the 
mutual  solemn  obligation  to  prepare  for 
self-government  and  eventual  separate  na- 
tional existence  ]Mohammedan  countries 
now  held  as  colonies  or  protectorates. 
For  is  not  the  only  justfication  of  "emi- 
nent European  domain"  the  happiness  and 
well-being  of  extra-European  peoples  in 
subjection?  If  so,  the  complete  control 
(especially  in  internal  affairs)  of  the  Eu- 
ropean benefactors  must  be  exercised  in 
such  a  way  that  the  people  be  prepared 
for  self-government  as  rapidly  as  possible : 
and  the  people  need  to  be  convinced  by 
acts — words  no  longer  count  for  anything 
— that  the  officials  imposed  upon  them 
place  the  interests  of  the  occupied  country 
and  its  inhabitants  before  the  interests  of 
the  occupjang  country.  Let  no  reader  ex- 
claim that  I  am  a  dreamer,  setting  forth 
134. 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

an  absurd  and  unrealizable  and  impracti- 
cable policy.  It  was  the  American  policy 
in  Cuba.  It  is  the  American  policy  in 
the  Philippine  Islands. 

THE   FUTURE   OF   THE    KH^VLIFATE 

The  relations  of  Europe  with  Africa 
and  Asia  have  been  allowed  during  the 
last  thirty  years  to  be  troubled  and  upset 
by  a  curious  and  wholly  unfounded  sup- 
position upon  the  part  of  European  states- 
men that  Islam  had  to  have  a  universal 
khalifate.  As  different  Powers  aspired  to 
be  predominant  in  Constantinople  and 
Arabia,  it  was  believed  by  each  of  these 
Powers  that  the  khalifate  could  be  cap- 
tured and  used  for  the  greater  glory  of 
the  successful  Power  and  the  confusion  of 
the  rival  Powers!  Ilence  we  read  con- 
stantly in  the  newspapers  and  magazines 
of  Europe  and  America  the  statement  that 
135 


HECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

the  Sultan  of  Turkey  is  khalif  of  the  entire 
Islamic  world,  a  sort  of  pope,  whose  re- 
ligious authority  is  everywhere  acknowl- 
edged, and  articles  are  frequently  written 
about  "the  revival  of  the  Arabian  khalif- 
ate." 

The  erroneous  conception  of  the  uni- 
versal khalifate  was  born  of  European  in- 
trigues and  rivah'ies.  Abdul-Hamid  was 
quick  to  seize  upon  it,  however,  and  use  it 
S.S  the  means  of  making  himself  the  center 
of  Panislamism.  In  their  eagerness  to 
thwart  one  another's  schemes  of  expansion 
and  upset  one  another's  already  acquired 
hold  in  INIohanimedan  countries,  the  states- 
men of  the  Powers  acknowledged  Abdul- 
Hamid's  possession  of  an  office  that  had 
disappeared  with  the  immediate  successors 
of  Mohammed — an  office  which  the  ances- 
tors of  Abdul-Hamid,  in  the  heyday  of 
their  prestige  three  centuries  before,  had 
136 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

been  unable  to  revive  to  their  profit.  Aus- 
tria-Hungary and  Italy  were  so  anxious 
to  get  away  with  their  loot  that  in  the 
treaties  of  1908  and  1912  with  Turkey,  the 
sultan  was  recognized  as  the  spiritual 
suzerain  of  subjects  lost  to  the  Ottoman 
Empire  by  the  Bosnia-Herzegovina  and 
Tripoli  grabs.  The  same  blunder  was 
planned  for  Albania.  The  action  was  as 
foolish  as  it  was  meaningless:  it  created  a 
dangerous  precedent.  Since  Islam  is  or- 
ganically theocratic,  a  JNIohammedan  ruler 
cannot  be  khalif  of  people  who  are  not 
under  his  political  jurisdiction.  It  is  pos- 
sible to  conceive  of  a  universal  khalifate 
only  if  all  Mohammedan  countries  are 
united  in  a  single  Mohammedan  empire. 
That  is  what  Selim  I  had  in  mind  when, 
after  the  conquest  of  Egj^pt,  he  assumed 
the  title  of  khalif  and  turned  against  Persia. 
German  scholars  know  all  this,  but  their 
137 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

kaiser  evidently  did  not.  Else  he  would 
have  been  prepared  for  the  failure  of  a 
repercussion  in  the  jNIohanimedan  world 
when  his  Ottoman  ally  unfurled  the  green 
flag  and  solemnly  declared  a  d jehad  (holy 
war)  of  "the  faithful"'  against  the  enemies 
of  Germany. 

The  idea  of  reviving  the  Arabian 
khalifate  as  a  means  of  hastening  the  dis- 
integration of  the  Ottoman  Empire  has 
long  been  gravely  discussed.  From  the 
British  point  of  view  there  have  been  pros 
and  cons;  also  from  the  French  point  of 
view.  The  British  have  opposed  the  idea 
when  they  felt  friendly  to  Turkey  and 
when  they  feared  that  an  Ai'abian  khalif- 
ate might  lead  to  a  free  Arabia  which 
would  endanger  their  position  in  Egypt; 
they  have  encouraged  the  idea  when  they 
wanted  to  threaten  Turkey  and  when  they 
hoped  that  JNIesopotamia  and  the  holy 
138 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

places  might  fall  under  their  political 
control.  France  has  viewed  the  Arabian 
khalifate  in  the  light  of  its  advantages  and 
disadvantages  in  furthering  her  ambitions 
to  acquire  Syria  and  to  consolidate  her 
IMohammedan  northern  African  empire. 
Before  the  Agreement  of  1904,  many 
Frenchmen  interested  in  the  near  East 
looked  favorably  upon  the  Arabian  khalif- 
ate as  a  means  of  ousting  the  British  from 
Eg>'pt. 

During  the  present  war  the  agitation  for 
an  Arabian  khalifate  has  come  to  the  front 
again  as  a  war  measure  against  Turkey. 
The  Sherif  of  IMecca,  encouraged  by  Great 
Britain  and  France  and  now  actively  aided 
by  contributions  of  munitions  and  the 
sending  of  native  regiments  from  ]Moham- 
medan  colonies  of  the  Entente  Powers,  is 
in  rebellion  against  the  Turks.  lie  calls 
himself  "King  of  Arabia,"  and  is  formally 
139 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

recognized  by  France  and  Great  Britain 
as  "King  of  the  Hedjaz."  But  the  poor 
sherif  has  not  made  good  his  right  to  the 
hmited  title  the  French  and  British  au- 
thorities are  wilhng  to  let  him  bear.  To 
the  south  of  Mecca,  Said  Idris  and  Im- 
mam  Yahia,  both  of  whom  are  "strictly 
neutral"  in  this  war,  are  much  more 
powerful  Arab  rulers  than  the  Sherif  of 
Mecca;  and  on  the  north  the  new  "king" 
(melek,  by  the  way,  is  not  a  INIohammedan 
title)  is  meeting  with  serious  difficulty  in 
conquering  the  second  sacred  city  of  his 
"kingdom."  At  this  writing  Medina  is 
still  held  by  the  Turks.  As  cabinet  minis- 
ters, the  former  sherif  has  appointed  three 
of  his  sons,  and  his  army  is  led  by  the  im- 
placable foe  of  Italy  in  Tripoli,  Aziz  Ali 
Pasha.  Before  the  assumption  of  sover- 
eignty by  the  sherif,  France  sent  to  Mecca 
a  delegation  of  distinguished  African 
140 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

Moslems — a  tentative  step  toward  recog- 
nition of  the  sherif  as  "khalif  of  the  Mo- 
hammedan world."  This  mission,  which 
cost  the  French  budget  over  a  million 
dollars,  indicates  that  French  statesmen 
are  persisting  in  the  old  error  of  believing 
in  the  universal  khalifate — a  belief  as  con- 
trary to  the  interests  of  France  as  it  is 
contrary  to  reality. 

There  ought  to  be  no  "question  of  the 
khalifate"  for  Europe.  It  took  centuries 
for  Europe  to  learn  the  folly  of  trying 
to  use  the  Christian  religion  as  a  cloak 
for  territorial  ambitions  and  aggression 
against  enemies  and  rivals,  of  working  to 
control  the  head  of  the  church  for  political 
ends,  of  setting  up  ecclesiastical  establish- 
ments for  reasons  of  diplomacy.  Can  we 
not  apply  to  Asia  and  Africa  the  lessons 
learned?  Khalifs  and  the  INIohammedan 
religion  ought  to  have  no  connection  with 
141 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

European  chancelleries.  If  European 
chancelleries  believe  that  the  connection 
should  exist,  it  is  because  they  have  in 
mind  schemes  of  conquest  and  exploita- 
tion of  JVIohammedan  countries.^ 

THE   DEVOLUTION    OF    MOHAMMED^iN 
COUNTRIES 

In  discussing  this  question,  it  is  difficult 
to  go  back  of  the  status  quo — not  only 
difficult,  but  unprofitable.     Once  started, 

1  When  General  Maude  brought  liis  army  trium- 
phantly into  Bagdad,  he  issued  a  proclamation  assuring 
the  Arabs  that  the  British  had  not  come  to  subjugate 
them.  I  have  from  reliable  authority,  also,  the  fact 
that  in  the  propaganda  among  the  Messopotamian 
tribes  of  Arabia,  whose  aid  to  the  British  made  possible 
in  1917  what  could  not  be  accomplished  in  1915,  emphasis 
was  put  upon  the  "mission  of  liberty"  of  the  British 
army.  To  promise  liberty  to  the  Arabs  was  essential 
to  military  success.  It  is  to  be  hojicd  that  the  British 
at  home — the  Foreign  Office — will  realize  that  liberty  to 
the  Arabs  is  essential  also  to  political  success.  We  have 
arrived  at  a  point  in  the  world's  history  when  govern- 
ments must  not  be  dazzled  or  tempted  by  immediate 
advantages. 

142 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

there  is  no  end  to  the  labyrinth.  One 
wanders  in  circles,  and  finds  himself  in 
culs-de-sac.  In  regard  to  Mohammedan 
territories  already  in  possession  of  Euro- 
pean Powers,  one  can  ask  only  for  the 
strict  application  of  twentieth-century 
principles  of  treatment  of  subject  races: 
that  the  holder  prepare  the  people  for  self- 
government,  and  refrain  from  exploiting 
them. 

But  we  have  Egypt,  whose  status  has 
not  yet  been  determined  by  international 
agreement;  the  independent  countries, 
Turkey,  Persia,  Afghanistan ;  the  country 
Italy  is  trying  to  conquer,  Tripoli;  the 
country  Austria,  Italy  and  the  Balkan 
States  are  eager  to  possess,  Albania;  and 
the  quasi-independent  Arabian  sultanates 
and  tribes. 

From  the  material  point  of  view,  Great 
Britain  has  governed  Egypt  justly,  and 
143 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

there  can  be  no  question  of  the  material 
benefit  the  Eg^^ptians  have  gained  from 
the  British  occupation.  The  sovereign  of 
the  country  is  content  to  be  under  British 
protection,  and,  from  my  personal  knowl- 
edge, I  feel  sure  that  the  Egyptians  do 
not  want  to  return  to  Turkey,  or  to  ex- 
change their  British  masters  for  any  other 
actual  or  formal  European  protection. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  population, 
then,  if  the  officials  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment, following  out  a  policy  definitely  es- 
tablished by  London,  rule  in  such  a  way 
as  to  prepare  the  Egyptians  for  internal 
autonomy,  Great  Britain  is  welcome  to 
remain  in  Egypt.  From  the  European 
and  world  point  of  view  British  control  of 
Egypt  is  dependent  upon  the  solution  of 
the  question  of  the  world's  waterways. 
Other  nations  control  passages  from 
ocean  to  ocean:  the  United  States  the 
144 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

Panama  Canal,  Germany  the  Kiel  Canal, 
Turkey  the  Bosphorus  and  Dardanelles. 
It  would  be  incumbent  upon  the  British 
to  give  up  the  guardianship  of  the  Suez 
Canal  only  if  the  Americans  and  the  Ger- 
mans and  Turks  are  willing — or  are  made 
— to  accept  the  internationalization  of  the 
world's  waterways.  Unless  arguments 
based  on  principle  are  applied  to  all  par- 
ties alike,  can  we  hope  for  the  "durable 
peace"?  And  how  else  will  right  tran- 
scend force  than  by  the  prevalence  of  ar- 
guments based  on  principle? 

The  peace  conference,  seeking  an  equi- 
table and  durable  peace,  based  upon  the 
freedom  of  small  nations,  will  guarantee 
the  neutrality  of  Afghanistan  and  Persia. 
Such  a  measure  is  not  only  an  act  de- 
manded by  a  sense  of  justice,  but  also  by 
a  sense  of  political  wisdom.  The  inde- 
pendence and  integrity  of  these  two  ]Mo- 
145 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

hammedan  states,  an  independence  and 
integrity  assured  by  international  sanction 
and  not  by  alliance  with  or  protection  of 
one  Power  or  group  of  Powers,  are  as  es- 
sential for  the  equilibrium  of  western  Asia 
as  are  the  independence  and  integrity  of 
Belgium,  similarly  assured,  for  the  equi- 
librium of  wTstern  Europe.  We  cannot 
presuppose  a  permanent  alliance  and  a 
permanent  common  policy  between  Great 
Britain  and  Russia. 

The  Ottoman  Empire  is  the  rock  upon 
which  peace  conferences  have  split. 
1815,  1856,  1878,  marked  a  new  lease  of 
life  for  the  Osmanlis.  Each  time,  during 
the  struggle  preceding  the  conference,  the 
disappearance  of  the  Turks  from  Europe 
was  confidently  predicted.  Each  time  the 
Turks  not  only  stayed  in  Europe,  but  suc- 
ceeded in  keeping  under  their  domination 
a  large  portion  of  their  Christian  subject 
146 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

races.  But  in  the  approaching  peace  con- 
ference the  Turks  will  not  have  as  power- 
ful friends  as  formerly,  and  their  crimes 
have  been  more  widely  advertised.  It  is 
impossible  to  conceive  of  a  peace  that  will 
leave  to  the  Turks  the  power  to  complete 
the  systematic  extermination  of  the  Ar- 
menian nation  by  massacre,  starvation, 
and  forcible  conversion.  The  Syrian 
Christians  and  the  Jews  of  Palestine  have 
also  to  be  considered.  As  we  have  seen 
above,  a  portion  of  the  Ottoman  Arabs, 
controlling  the  city  of  Mecca,  have  already 
broken  away  from  Turkish  domination. 
In  Austria,  Hungary,  Russia,  and  Tur- 
key we  have  the  problem  of  a  dominant 
race  ruling  conquered  races  that  have  a 
historic  past  and  that  have  preserved  their 
separate  language,  customs,  and  national 
consciousness.  The  setting  forth  by  the 
Entente  Powers  of  the  emancii3ation  of 
147 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

small  nationalities  as  the  principal  object 
of  the  war  affects  Russia  in  Europe  and 
Great  Britain  outside  of  Europe  as  much 
as  it  affects  Austria  and  Hungary  and 
more  than  it  affects  Germany.  When  it 
comes  to  application  of  the  principle,  the 
Great  Powers  may  find  mutually  a  way 
of  escaping.  But  there  is  not  apt  to  be  a 
way  out  this  time  for  Turkey.  The  Otto- 
man Empire  will  undoubtedly  be  shorn  of 
its  alien  elements. 

I  have  set  forth  the  considerations  in- 
volved in  the  problem  of  Constantinople. 
Albania,  INIacedonia,  Thrace,  and  the 
Greek  Islands  are  dealt  with  in  the  next 
chapter  on  the  Balkan  balance  of  power. 
A  partition  of  the  Asiatic  portions  of  the 
Ottoman  Empire  among  the  conquerors 
in  the  European  War  is  inconceivable. 
Turkey  is  an  ally  of  the  Central  Powers, 
and  they  could  hardly  despoil  her  after 
148 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

several  years  of  comradeship  in  arms. 
The  Entente  Powers,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  taken  upon  themseh^es  before  the 
whole  world  the  solemn  obligation  to  ap- 
ply in  the  peace  which  they  would  dictate 
the  principle  of  nationalities  in  establish- 
ing the  political  status  of  emancipated  ter- 
ritories. Public  opinion  in  the  Entente 
countries  must  insist,  then,  upon  unswerv- 
ing loyalty  to  the  ideal  in  a  peace  imposed 
by  their  arms  and  their  sacrifices. 

The  Armenians  are  a  nation,  with  a  his- 
tory of  fifteen  centuries,  a  language,  a 
literature,  and  a  church,  who  have  resisted 
every  effort  of  non-Christian  barbarians 
to  uproot  them  or  assimilate  them.  We 
want  to  see  them  freed,  not  put  under  the 
yoke  of  Russia  to  suffer  as  the  Finns, 
Poles,  and  Ruthenians  are  suffering. 
The  Syrians  of  the  Lebanon  Mountains 
are  Christians  wliose  separate  national 
149 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

existence  is  guaranteed  by  an  interna- 
tional treaty,  signed  by  the  European 
Powers.  France  cannot  make  Syria  a 
colony  without  regarding  this  treaty  as  a 
"scrap  of  paper."  And  who  dares  to  ad- 
vocate with  honest  conscience  that  the  En- 
tente Powers,  whose  program  is  the  free- 
dom of  small  nationalities,  consent  to  put- 
ting the  Greeks  of  the  ^gean  Islands  and 
the  Asia  Minor  coast-line  in  political  sub- 
jection to  their  traditional  and  worst 
enemies,  the  Italians? 

The  problem  is  a  thorny  one,  and,  I  am 
told  by  my  diplomatic  friends,  "exceed- 
ingly difficult."  But  that  is  only  because 
European  statesmen  and  politicians  have 
made  it  so.  Let  every  Power  in  Europe 
proclaim  its  own  disinterestedness,  and 
state  that  it  does  not  regard  this  war  as  a 
war  of  conquest,  but  as  a  war  of  emancipa- 
tion, and,  lo!  the  problem  disappears.  A 
150 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

Syrian  state  in  Syria,  an  Armenian  state 
in  Armenia  or  Cilicia,  under  the  collective 
guarantee  of  all  Europe,  and  the  union  of 
the  Greek  islands  and  the  middle  portion 
of  the  Asia  Minor  littoral  to  Greece — this 
is  the  only  program  that  will  satisfy  the 
aspirations  of  the  subject  Christian  na- 
tionalities, and  assure  a  durable  peace  in 
the  near  East.  As  the  Turks  (including 
all  ^lohammedans  who  regard  themselves 
as  Turks)  number  nearly  ten  millions,  and 
are  a  virile  nation,  it  is  foolish  to  talk  of 
dispossessing  them  and  subjecting  them. 
Desires  do  not  make  realities.  The  Greek 
and  Armenian  and  S}Tian  frontiers  will 
have  to  be  drawn  moderately. 

Beyond  Cilicia  and  Syria  there  are  no 
Turks,  and  we  can  assume,  from  the  les- 
sons of  history  and  from  indications  man- 
ifested everywhere  in  Syria  and  Meso- 
potamia and  Arabia  to-day,  that  the 
151 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Arabic-speaking  jMohammedans  will  make 
no  effort  to  conserve  the  tie  that  has  bound 
them  for  centuries  against  their  will  to  the 
Ottoman  Empire.  The  political  future 
of  the  Arabic-speaking  Mohammedans — 
the  relations  of  the  rival  emirs  with  one 
another,  with  the  Syrian  Christians,  and 
with  the  Palestine  Jews — is  too  complex 
a  question  to  be  broached  here.  I  can 
only  assert  that  the  difficulties,  however, 
are  no  more  formidable  if  the  principle  of 
"eminent  European  domain"  is  w^aived 
than  if  it  is  maintained.  Here,  again, 
there  is  need  of  a  declaration  of  territorial 
disinterestedness  all  around  the  table  at 
the  peace  conference.  The  Sherif  of 
Mecca,  after  the  proclamation  of  the  king- 
dom of  Arabia,  stated  this  in  no  uncertain 
terms.  "Al  Kibla,"  the  new  king's  offi- 
cial journal,  reports  him  as  saying,  when 
he  announced  to  the  Arabic-speaking 
152 


EUROPE  AND  ISLAM 

world  that  France  and  Great  Britain  were 
collaborating  with  him  to  establish  Ara- 
bian independence: 

If  we  have  expelled  the  Turks  from  our  ter- 
ritory, it  is  because  we  have  considered  them 
as  foreigners,  and  they  have  no  part  in  our  his- 
torical and  religious  traditions.  How  then 
could  we  be  wilhng  to  accept  the  supremacy  of 
otlier  foreigners?  We  have  prepared  our  own 
rebellion  against  the  Turks.  No  person  not  of 
our  own  race  has  taken  part  in  it.  We  have 
begged  the  Powers  of  the  Entente  not  to  mix 
up  in  our  affairs.  We  have  made  them  well 
understand  that  we  have  determined  to  preserve 
Mohammedan  independence  against  all  at- 
tacks. .  .  .  The  Entente  Powers  are  alhes 
whom  we  respect,  and  friends  whom  we  love. 
But,  I  repeat,  our  alHance  with  them  is  based 
upon  the  most  complete  independence. 

All  the  JNIohammedans  in  the  world  are 
of  the  opinion  of  the  King  of  Arabia. 
Islam  wants  friends,  not  masters. 


153 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALANCE  OF 
POWER  IN  THE  BALKANS 

One  can  scarcely  count  upon  a  durable  peace 
unless  three  conditions  are  fulfilled:  (1)  exist- 
ing causes  of  international  troubles  should  be 
eliminated  or  reduced  as  much  as  possible;  (2) 
the  aggressive  objects  and  the  unscrupulous 
methods  of  the  Central  Powers  should  be  dis- 
credited in  the  eyes  of  their  own  peoples;  (3) 
above  international  law,  above  all  the  treaties 
having  as  object  the  prevention  or  hindrance 
of  hostilities,  there  should  be  established  an  in- 
ternational sanction  which  would  stop  the  most 
daring  aggressors. — Foreign  Secretary  Bal- 
four, in  a  cablegram  to  the  British  Ambassador 
at  Washington,  January  15,  1917. 

EVERY  student  of  international  af- 
fairs   and    the    Great    War,    every 
thinker  who  has  his  mind  fixed  upon  the 
problem  of  the  durable  peace,  every  lover 
of  humanity,  will  endorse  the  three  condi- 
154 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

tions  laid  down  by  Mr.  Balfour,  with  one 
modification.  In  the  second  condition, 
justice  as  well  as  common  sense  leads  us 
to  substitute  "all  the  Powers"  for  "the 
Central  Powers."  Only  one  who  is 
blinded  by  passion  and  prejudice,  or  who 
feels  that  some  special  interest  compels 
him  to  keep  alive  the  fiction  that  all  the 
right  is  on  one  side  and  all  the  wrong  on 
the  other,  still  allows  himself  the  privilege 
of  an  "I-am-holier-than-thou"  attitude. 
While  the  fighting  is  on,  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  a  sacred  cause.  France  and 
Belgium,  who  took  up  arms  in  defense  of 
their  soil,  have  felt  and  are  still  feeling  the 
moral  force  of  being  in  the  right.  An  ap- 
peal to  fight  for  a  principle  brought  to  the 
British  Government  the  support  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  in  the  colonies  and  in 
the  United  States  as  well  as  in  the  mother 
country.  But  there  never  was  a  quarrel 
155 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

that  did  not  have  two  sides,  and  no  quarrel 
was  ever  mended  unless  the  acknowledg- 
ments and  concessions  were  mutual. 

We  must  remember  that  ^Nlr.  Balfour 
was  talking  about  a  world  peace,  and  was 
commenting  upon  the  reply  of  ten  states 
to  iNIr.  Wilson's  peace  overture.  He  was 
not  speaking  for  Great  Britain  alone, 
nor  was  he  speaking  for  Great  Britain  and 
France.  Did  he  expect  to  make  intel- 
ligent men  believe  that  none  of  the  En- 
tente Powers  has  "aggressive  objects" 
and  that  none  of  the  Entente  Powers  is 
guilty  of  "unscrupulous  methods"?  If  he 
could  assure  us  that  Japan  is  prepared  to 
hand  over  the  Shan-tung  peninsula  to 
China,  that  Russia  waives  her  claims  to 
Constantinople  and  Armenia,  that  Italy 
has  no  territorial  ambitions  in  the  Balkan 
peninsula  and  iEgean  Islands  and  Asia 
]Minor,  that  Serbia  had  not  been  plotting 
156 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

against  Austria- Hungary  for  years  before 
the  war,  that  Rumania  joined  the  Entente 
with  no  "aggressive  object,"  and  that  no 
members  of  the  Entente  Coalition  had 
been  guilty  of  "unscrupulous  methods" 
(i.e.,  massacre  and  pillage  in  invaded 
countries,  barbarous  treatment  of  pris- 
oners, ruthless  repression  of  rebellions 
at  home,  cruelty  on  the  battle-field,  break- 
ing of  international  law  on  the  high 
seas),  he  would  be  justified  in  saying 
"Central  Powers"  instead  of  "all  the 
Powers"  in  settino;  forth  the  second  con- 
dition. 

Partizanship  is  natural.  If  neutrality 
of  persons  does  not  mean  ignorance,  it 
at  least  means  indifference.  But  parti- 
zanship must  not  be  carried  over  to  the 
post-bellum  period,  else  it  is  as  harmful  to 
one's  friends  as  it  is  to  one's  foes.  We 
can  afford  to  have  neither  a  pro-Ally  nor 
167 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

a  pro-German  point  of  view  in  writing  on 
the  causes  of  the  war  and  on  the  recon- 
struction of  the  world  after  the  war.  If 
lawyers  handled  the  cases  of  their  clients 
in  the  same  spirit  that  most  writers  are 
handling  the  cause  of  their  country  or  of 
the  group  of  belligerents  to  which  they 
have  attached  their  fortunes,  i.e.,  making 
the  abandonment  of  cold,  sober  judgment 
a  test  of  loyalty,  could  they  put  up  a  good 
defense  in  court  or  arrive  at  a  satisfactory 
settlement  out  of  court?  The  fact  that 
the  United  States  may  be  forced  to  take 
an  active  part  in  the  war  through  Ger- 
many's submarine  madness  in  no  way 
lessens  the  force  of  the  plea  for  preserving 
detachment  in  forming  judgments  and  in 
envisaging  the  problems  of  the  recon- 
struction era.  There  must  be  a  remorse- 
less pointing  out  of  past  errors,  a  frank 
acknowledgment  of  each  nation's  part  in 
158 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

the  development  of  the  general  causes  of 
the  European  War,  a  mutual  willingness 
to  meet  on  new  ground,  before  we  can 
hope  for  the  reconstruction  of  Europe  on 
just  and  durable  bases. 

The  people  of  France  and  Great  Britain 
and  of  the  British  colonies  believe  in  the 
justice  of  their  cause,  and  have  a  sincere 
desire  to  see  a  new  Europe — a  new  world, 
indeed — come  out  of  the  present  cataclysm 
of  suffering  and  destruction.  Until 
President  Wilson  gave  Count  Bernstorff 
his  passports  they  were  grieved  and  angry 
at  the  passive  attitude  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States.  They  could  not  under- 
stand American  official  neutrality  in  the 
face  of  the  crimes  of  which  Germany  had 
been  guilty.  They  believed  that  Ameri- 
can lust  for  gold  and  desire  for  ease  were 
blinding  us  to  the  moral  issues  at  stake. 
This  was  because  they  saw  only  one  side 
159 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

of  the  shield.  They  were  thinking  only 
of  their  enemies  and  the  guilt  of  their  ene- 
mies. They  saw  peace  attainable  only 
through  crushing  their  enemies.  They 
did  not  realize  that  Americans  knew  more 
about  the  complexity  of  interests  at  stake 
in  the  war  than  they  did,  because  we  had 
continually  held  before  our  eyes  both  sides 
of  the  shield.^     We  are  as  keenly  ahve 

1  Ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  I  have  been 
writing  in  the  American  press  in  defense  of  the  cause  of 
the  Entente  Powers,  and  have  pointed  out  the  wrongs  of 
Belgium,  the  cruelty  of  the  Germans  in  invaded  regions, 
and  the  aspirations  of  certain  subject  nationalities.  The 
result  has  been  that  I  have  had  communications  and  a 
flood  of  literature  from  all  sorts  of  "national  commit- 
tees" with  headquarters  in  the  United  States.  There 
are  Irish,  Polish,  Finnish,  Ukrainian  (Ruthenian),  Lith- 
uanian, Armenian,  Arabian,  Syrian,  Persian,  Egyptian, 
Indian,  and  Chinese  committees,  whose  charges  against 
Great  Britain  and  Russia  and  Japan,  and  whose  claims 
for  independence,  are  in  most  cases  as  fully  substanti- 
ated and  as  well  worth  being  considered  as  the  claims 
of  nationalities  subject  to  Austria-Hungary.  The  lugo- 
Slavs  (whose  emancipation  the  Entente  Powers'  response 
to  President  Wilson  specified)  seem  to  fear  Italy  more 
than  their  traditional  oppressor.    Jewish  committees  and 

160 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

as  any  Frenchman  or  Englishman  or  Ca- 
nadian or  Austrahan  or  Xew  Zealander  to 
the  moral  issues  of  the  war :  but  we  do  not 
share  their  illusions  about  liberal  Russia  ^ 
and  disinterested  Italy.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  know  that  British  and  French 

the  Ruthenian  committee  have  sent  me  evidence  of  cruel- 
ties committed  by  the  Russians  in  Courland  and  Galicia 
on  a  larger  scale  than  those  of  the  Germans  in  Belgium. 
American  editors  and  writers  will  bear  me  out  in  the 
statement  that  we  are  constantly  confronted  with  these 
charges  and  claims  from  sources  that  can  in  no  way  be 
suspected  of  being  subsidized  by  or  sympathetic  to 
Germany. 

1  It  is  too  early  to  assert  that  the  entire  foreign  policy 
of  Russia  is  changed  by  the  March  revolution  at  Petro- 
grad.  History  has  taught  that  democracies  are  a  long 
time  in  the  making,  and  that  Jacobins  have  imperialistic 
tendencies.  One  of  the  first  public  declarations  of  M. 
MiliukofiF,  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  in  the  Provisional 
Government,  was  to  the  effect  that  the  new  regime  had 
not  changed  in  any  way  Russia's  desire  to  accjuire  Con- 
stantino])le.  Whether  we  have  a  Russia  coming,  to  the 
Peace  Conference  without  demands  of  territorial  ag- 
grandizement and  the  desire  to  extend  her  government 
over  other  races  without  their  consent,  depends  upon  the 
success  of  the  Socialists  and  the  extreme  Radicals  in 
keeping  in  their  hands  the  new  Russia  whose  birth  is  due 
to  their  efforts  and  their  daring. 

161 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

statesmen  have  been  making,  and  are  still 
making,  bribes  to  Russia  and  Italy  that 
constitute  a  flagrant  denial  of  the  princi- 
ples for  the  championship  of  which  they 
ask  our  support  and  sympathy.  Has  it 
never  occurred  to  the  French  and  English 
that  we  are  neither  stupid  nor  credulous: 
and  that  we  are  not  blinded  by  the  procla- 
mation of  the  principle  of  defense  of  small 
nationalities  in  a  document  which  specifies 
the  application  of  the  principle  only  in 
cases  where  the  emancipation  of  subject 
races  would  impair  the  political  unity  of 
enemy  powers? 

"The  aggressive  objects  and  unscrupu- 
lous methods  of  all  the  Powers  should  be 
discredited  in  the  eyes  of  their  own  peo- 
ple." Amen,  Mr.  Balfour:  and  let  us 
begin  in  the  Balkans.  Your  statement  to 
the  American  people  furnishes  an  excel- 
lent starting-point: 

162 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

It  may  be  argued,  it  is  true,  that  the  expul- 
sion of  the  Turks  from  Europe  is  neither  a 
logical  nor  a  natural  part  of  this  general  plan 
[to  establish  a  durable  peace].  The  mainte- 
nance of  the  Turkish  Empire  was  for  genera- 
tions considered  essential  by  the  world's  states- 
men for  the  maintenance  of  European  peace. 
Why,  one  may  say,  is  the  cause  of  peace  now 
associated  with  the  complete  overthrowal  of  this 
political  tradition?  The  reply  is  that  circum- 
stances have  entirely  changed. 

Mr.  Balfour  does  not  tell  us  how  or  why 
circumstances  have  changed.  The  Turks 
are  no  more  cruel  or  hopeless  of  reform 
to-day  than  they  were  in  1878,  when  the 
British  Government,  after  trying  to  hush 
up  in  England  the  story  of  the  Bulgarian 
massacres,  threatened  Russia  with  war  in 
order  to  keep  Russia  from  getting  Con- 
stantinople. 

Circumstances,  from  the  Turkish  and 
Balkan  points  of  view,  have  not  changed 
at  all.  They  have  changed  only  from  the 
163 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

point  of  view  of  British  diplomacy. 
Here  we  have  the  secret  of  the  evil  from 
which  the  world  is  suffering.  The  states- 
men of  the  Great  Powers,  w^ithout  the 
knowledge  of  their  electorates,  make  dip- 
lomatic combinations  that  plunge  their 
own  countries  into  wars  and  sacrifice  weak 
nations  and  races.  There  is  no  hesitation, 
no  compunction.  When  a  policy  incon- 
sistent with  a  former  policy  is  adopted, 
the  public  is  told  that  "circumstances  have 
entirely  changed."  The  public  accepts, 
and  the  best  blood  of  the  nation  goes  to 
death  without  know^ing  why.  JNIr.  Bal- 
four refrains  from  showing  how  "circum- 
stances have  entirely  changed."  Clever 
casuist  that  he  is,  he  could  explain  only 
bjT"  telling  the  trutli.  For  reasons  that 
have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  Con- 
stantinople and  the  Balkans  a  few  men 
decided  that  Russia  and  Great  Britain 
164 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

should  come  to  an  "understanding.'* 
What  Great  Britain  fought  one  terrible 
war  for,  and  was  ready  to  fight  another,  to 
prevent,  she  is  to-day  fighting  to  achieve. 
The  men  who  fell  in  the  Crimea  and  in 
Gallipoli,  two  generations  apart,  could 
not  both  have  died  in  a  righteous  cause. 

In  the  Congi'ess  of  Berlin,  which  at- 
tempted to  decide  the  destinies  of  the 
Balkan  nations,  Rumania,  Bulgaria, 
Greece,  and  Serbia  were  not  allowed  a 
voice.  The  Great  Powers  showed  an 
utter  disregard  for  the  interests  and  rights 
of  the  Balkan  nations.  From  1878  to 
1914  the  Balkan  diplomacy  of  the  Great 
Powers  followed  faithfully  the  policy 
that  guided  Beaconsfield  and  his  fellow- 
conspirators  at  Berlin.  For  what  were 
conceived  (often  wrongly)  to  be  the  in- 
terests of  the  British  Empire  and  of  other 
empires  that  were  being  built  up  or 
165 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

projected,  European  statesmen  showed 
invariably  a  willingness  to  sacrifice  the  in- 
terests of  the  Balkan  nations,  repress  their 
logical  national  development,  and  use 
their  national  aspirations  to  pit  one 
against  the  other.  Russia  and  Austria- 
Hungary  and  Italy,  having  conflicting 
imperial  programs  that  foreshadowed  po- 
litical control  of  the  Balkans,  were  most 
guilty.  But  Great  Britain,  Germany, 
and  France  had  their  share  of  blame  also. 
To  curry  favor  with  Constantinople  and 
to  gain  commercial  concessions,  as  well  as 
to  give  proof  of  loyalty  to  alliances  that 
were  forming  and  strengthening,  the  three 
Occidental  Powers  made  a  show  of  de- 
fending Turkey  while  secretly  counte- 
nancing the  aggressive  conspiracies  of 
their  actual  or  potential  allies.  This  is  no 
sweeping  assertion,  nor  is  it  raking  up 
forgotten  and  abandoned  policies.  We 
166 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

need  to  go  back  no  further  than  the  Young 
Turk  Revolution  of  1908.  We  can  hmit 
ourselves  to  citing  events  in  which  the  re- 
sponsibility of  statesmen  who  are  still  in 
office  was  engaged.  Any  one  who  looks 
into  the  diplomacy  of  the  Bosnia-Herze- 
govina and  Tripoli  grabs,  the  bullying  of 
M.  Venizelos  and  Greece  over  the  Creton 
question,  and  the  London  Ambassadorial 
Conference  of  1913,  cannot  fail  to  be  con- 
vinced that  in  so  far  as  the  Balkans  are 
concerned  the  diplomacy  of  all  the  Euro- 
pean chancelleries  is  tarred  with  the  same 
brush. 

To  show  how  recent  is  the  conviction  of 
the  British  foreign  office  to  the  belief  that 
"circumstances  have  entirely  changed"  in 
the  Balkans  and  necessitate  tlie  expulsion 
of  Turkey  from  Europe  in  order  to  assure 
peace,  let  me  quote  the  famous  note  of 
October  8,  1912,  which  the  Great  Powers 
167 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

delivered  to  the  Balkan  States  to  intimi- 
date them  from  taking  the  step  Mr.  Bal- 
four now  believes  essential  to  the  peace  of 
Europe.  In  diplomatic  circles  it  was  cur- 
rently reported  at  the  time  that  this  chef- 
d'oeuvre  emanated  from  Downing  Street. 
At  any  rate,  four  years  ago  Great  Britain 
put  her  signature  to  a  document  which 
said: 

The  Powers  condemn  energetically  every 
measure  capable  of  leading  to  a  rupture  of 
peace.  Suj)porting  themselves  on  Article  23 
of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin,  they  will  take  in  hand, 
in  the  interest  of  the  population,  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  reforms  of  the  administration  of 
European  Turke}^,  on  the  understanding  that 
these  reforms  will  not  diminish  the  sovereignty 
of  His  Imperial  Majesty  the  Sultan  and  the 
territorial  integrity  of  the  Ottoman  Empire. 
If,  in  spite  of  this  note,  war  docs  break  out  be- 
tween the  Balkan  States  and  the  Ottoman  Em- 
pire, the  Powers  will  not  admit,  at  the  end  of 
the  conflict,  any  modification  in  the  territorial 
status  quo  in  European  Turkey. 

168 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

The  Balkan  States,  who  had  waited  in 
vain  during  thirty-four  years  of  oppres- 
sion and  suffering  for  the  application  of 
Article  23  of  the  treaty  of  Berhn,  knew 
that  no  faith  could  be  put  in  promises  of 
the  Great  Powers.  They  knew,  too,  that 
suspicion  of  bad  faith  of  each  Power 
toward  each  other  Power  made  the  last 
statement  of  the  note  ridiculous  and  mean- 
ingless. Bulgaria,  Greece,  Serbia,  and 
IMontenegro  united  for  the  first  time  in 
their  history,  went  ahead,  and  accom- 
plished the  work  of  emancipation  in  de- 
fiance of  the  will  of  the  Great  Powers. 
They  would  probably  have  divided  the 
territories  wrested  from  Turkey  without 
serious  friction  had  not  the  Ambassadorial 
Conference  of  London  and  the  underhand 
intrigues  of  at  least  four  of  the  six  Powers 
forbidden  Serbia  the  access  to  the  Adriatic 
that  she  had  won  by  her  arms.  Sir  Ed- 
169 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

ward  Grey  afterward  said  that  his  part 
in  this  disgraceful  and  disastrous  decision 
was  justified  by  his  desire  to  avoid  a  Eu- 
ropean war.  By  impKcation,  at  least, 
Britisli  writers  have  since  tried  to  establish 
the  fact  that  Austria-Hungary  was  di- 
rectly responsible  for  barring  Serbia  from 
the  sea,  and  that  Germany  was  the  real 
culprit.  WiDielmstrasse,  so  we  are  told, 
was  instigating  and  backing  up  Ballplatz. 
This  is  true,  but  it  is  only  half  the  truth. 
Italy  was  equally  responsible,  and  Russia 
played  an  ignoble  role  in  the  affair. 

The  world  has  moved  too  fast  during 
the  last  three  years  to  waste  time  and 
energy  in  lamenting  what  might  have  hap- 
pened and  did  n't.  But  the  duty  is  none 
the  less  incumbent  upon  us  to  keep  in  mind 
the  Balkan  tragedy  of  1913  in  order  that 
a  repetition  of  it  may  be  avoided.  For 
none  of  the  participants  in  the  European 
170 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

interference  of  that  year  has  abandoned 
the  Great  Power  attitude  toward  the 
Balkans.  One  can  see  in  Balkan  events 
since  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war  no 
desire  on  the  part  of  any  European  for- 
eign office  to  forsake  the  deplorable  diplo- 
macy that  has  soaked  Europe  in  blood. 
Where  is  the  statesman  in  any  belligerent 
country  who  dares  to  come  out  openly  and 
call  a  spade  a  spade? 

The  facts  are  painful.  At  the  begin- 
ning, Serbia  was  the  only  Balkan  country 
involved  in  the  European  War.  It  was 
the  desire  of  the  other  Balkan  States  to 
remain  neutral.  All  of  them,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Rumania,  had  suffered  heavily 
in  the  two  preceding  wars  and  needed  a 
long  period  of  peace  for  recuperation. 
None  had  the  equipment  in  heavy  artil- 
lery, ammunition,  and  aeroplanes  to  en- 
gage in  war  against  a  Great  Power. 
171 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Serbia  resisted  with  admirable  skill  and 
courage  the  first  Austro-Hungarian  in- 
vasion. Her  armies  routed  the  invaders 
completely.  But  the  victory  had  been 
dearly  purchased,  and  precious  stores  of 
ammunition  expended.  Serbia's  power- 
ful allies  were  in  honor  bound  to  take 
steps  to  protect  Serbia  against  a  second 
invasion.  Since  Turkey  had  entered  the 
war,  interest  also  dictated  the  necessity  of 
reprovisioning  in  war  material,  and  rein- 
forcing the  armies  of  the  country  that 
stood  between  the  Central  Powers  and 
their  Ottoman  ally.  But  the  Entente 
Powers  were  thinking  of  themselves  and 
their  own  territorial  ambitions.  They 
hoped  to  force  Turkey  into  a  separate 
peace  very  speedily,  and  when  that  mo- 
ment arrived  they  planned  to  have  in  their 
possession  the  portions  of  Turkey  they 
wanted  to  keep.  Until  the  critical  days 
17a 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

came,  no  attention  was  paid  to  Serbia  and 
Montenegro.  Then  the  Entente  Powers, 
who  had  some  months  previously  showed 
their  unwilhngness  to  accept  Greek  advice 
and  aid  in  the  campaign  against  Turkey 
or  to  promise  to  protect  Greece  against 
Bulgarian  aggi'cssion,  suddenly  called  on 
Greece  to  go  to  the  aid  of  Serbia.  At  the 
same  time  negotiations  were  carried  on 
with  Bulgaria  and  Rumania.  In  all  the 
Balkan  capitals,  including  that  of  their 
faithful  little  ally,  the  ministers  of  the  En- 
tente Powers  bullied  and  blundered  and 
bluffed  without  being  able  to  offer  any 
tangible  reward  for  Balkan  aid.  The 
Balkan  States  knew  full  well  what  rewards 
France  and  Great  Britain  had  guaranteed 
to  Russia  and  Italy.  What  was  left  for 
them?  Russia  balked  at  giving  Rumania 
even  as  much  as  the  Bukowina,  let  alone 
Bessarabia  and  Transylvania.  Italy  re- 
173 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

fused  to  yield  one  iota  of  her  imperial  am- 
bitions which  could  be  realized  only  at  the 
expense  of  Greece  and  Serbia.  Bulgaria 
could  not  be  promised  the  return  of  her 
Macedonia  irredenta,  because  the  veto  of 
Italy  prevented  the  Entente  Powers  from 
promising  Serbia  compensation  on  the 
Adriatic  for  giving  up  ]Macedonia  to  Bul- 
garia. Great  Britain  and  France  could 
not  assure  to  Greece  effective  protection 
against  an  invasion  of  the  German,  Aus- 
tro- Hungarian,  Bulgarian,  and  Turkish 
armies.  It  was  diplomatic  incoherence 
and  military  impotence. 

The  events  in  the  Balkans  of  the  second 
and  third  years  of  the  war  have  saved  the 
Central  Powers  from  a  humiliating  de- 
feat and  Turkey  from  dismemberment. 
If  public  opinion  in  France  and  Great 
Britain  persists  in  believing  that  the  de- 
bacle of  the  Entente  cause  is  due  to  the 
174 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

stubbornness  of  Serbia,  the  pro-German 
sentiment  of  King  Constantine  and  his 
general  staff,  the  cowardice  of  the 
Greeks,  the  treason  of  Bulgaria,  and  the 
foolhardiness  and  lack  of  military  virtues 
of  Rumania,  the  Central  Powers  will  have 
won  definitely  the  war  in  the  East,  no 
matter  what  happens  on  the  Western 
front,  and  the  Berlin-Bagdad  dream  will 
be  as  much  of  a  reality  as  Mitteleuropa. 
German  domination  in  the  Balkans  may 
be  a  justifiable  ambition  from  the  German 
point  of  view,  but  not  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  Balkan  races !  No  races  have 
ever  been  happy  under  German  control, 
and  the  events  of  this  war  have  not  given 
the  world  reason  for  believing  in  a  change 
in  the  selfish  and  barbarous  attitude  of 
Germans  toward  other  nations,  especially 
when  those  other  nations  are  weaker. 
We  know  the  German  theory  of  national 
175 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

expansion.  It  has  been  set  forth  over  and 
over  again  by  the  ablest  German  scientists 
and  historians  in  relation  to  the  Drang 
nach  Osten:  the  weak  in  the  path  of  the 
strong  must  be  exterminated  or  amalga- 
mated. 

Without  ignoring  or  denying  the  ex- 
istence of  a  number  of  contributing  fac- 
tors, we  can  get  to  the  very  heart  of  the 
Balkan  problem  when  we  are  willing  to 
see  and  set  forth  the  most  important 
reason  of  Balkan  lukewarmness  for  the 
cause  of  the  Entente  Powers.  While 
recognizing  the  Teuton  menace,  because 
fully  aware  of  Teuton  aspirations,  Balkan 
nations  attribute  the  same  conception  of 
national  expansion  to  Russia  and  Italy. 
The  statesmen  of  Rumania  and  Serbia  and 
JMontenegro,  and  the  leaders  of  thought 
in  these  three  Balkan  countries  allied  to 
the  Entente  Powers,  think  on  this  point 
176 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

exactly  as  do  the  statesmen  and  leaders 
of  Bulgaria  and  Greece.  So  does  M. 
Venizelos,  head  of  the  Greek  revolutionary 
government  at  Saloniki.  Before  the  con- 
quest of  Serbia,  M.  Pachitch  was  unable 
to  prevent  embarrassing  interpellations 
concerning  Italy's  intentions  in  the  Nish 
Skuptchina.  In  fact,  the  Premier  of 
Serbia  has  not  had  a  happy  moment  since 
Italy  joined  the  Entente.  The  statesmen 
of  broad  vision  in  Rumania  fought  bitterly 
to  the  very  last  hour  the  irresponsible 
forces  at  Bukharest  that  were  bent  ui)on 
the  destruction  of  their  country  through 
following  blindly  the  Transylvanian  will- 
o'-the-wisp.  When  M.  Venizelos,  humili- 
ated and  discredited,  feels  that  it  is  time 
to  speak  out  the  truth,  he  will  have  a  sad 
story  of  betrayal  to  tell.  On  the  platform 
of  the  station  at  Lyons,  King  Nicholas, 
coming  to  France  for  the  exile  that  may 
177 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

have  no  end,  declared,  "Franz  Josef 
struck  me  on  the  head,  but  Victor  Em- 
manuel has  struck  me  in  the  heart."  The 
King  of  JNIontenegro  has  no  illusions 
about  the  part  his  son-in-law's  govern- 
ment played  by  abstention  in  the  crushing 
of  his  kingdom. 

Russia's  pretensions  to  Constantinople, 
and  the  universal  opposition  of  the  Balkan 
races  to  Russian  ambitions,  have  been 
dealt  with  in  an  earlier  chapter.  In  ex- 
posing to  President  Wilson  their  aims  in 
the  war  and  their  ideas  of  the  bases  of  a 
durable  peace,  the  Entente  Powers  evaded 
a  definite  statement  on  this  important 
question.  They  spoke  only  of  driving  the 
Turks  from  Europe.  None  denies  the 
justice  of  assuring  Russia's  passage  to  the 
open  sea,  but  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile 
Russian  control  of  Constantinople  with 
the  principle  of  the  rights  of  small  nations 
178 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

to  self-government.  Russia  is  ruled  by 
a  cruel,  despotic,  and  irresponsible  bureau- 
cracy. Even  the  Liberal  Nationalists  in 
Russia  have  proved  themselves  as  intoler- 
ant of  the  rights  of  subject  nationalities 
as  have  the  Young  Turks.  From  the 
Balkan  point  of  view,  Russia  at  Constanti- 
nople and  the  straits  (which  would  mean 
also  a  large  portion  of  Thrace)  would 
bring  into  the  peninsula  a  powerful  coun- 
try who  is  hated  because  she  is  feared  by 
all  the  Balkan  nations. 

Five  years  ago  much  was  written  by 
Occidental  observers  on  the  subject  of 
Italian  imperialism.  But,  when  the  pres- 
ent war  broke  out,  the  criticism  of  Italy 
ceased.  Berlin  hoped  to  keep  Italy  neu- 
tral. Paris  and  London  wanted  to  detach 
Italy  from  her  former  allies,  and  get  her 
to  enter  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  Entente. 
The  result  was  disastrous  for  Italy,  who 
179 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

began  to  feel  that  destiny  was  calling  upon 
her  to  play  the  decisive  role  in  European 
history.  The  hope  of  extending  her 
sovereignty  over  the  Trentino  and  Triest, 
and  the  making  of  the  Adriatic  an  Italian 
sea  could  be  realized  only  by  intervening 
on  the  side  of  the  Entente.  But  the  price 
of  intervention  mounted  at  Rome  each 
month  as  the  importunity  of  the  Entente 
increased.  Italy  wanted  her  full  share  in 
the  partition  of  the  Ottoman  Empire. 
After  the  failure  of  the  Dardanelles  and 
Saloniki  expeditions,  the  appetite  of 
Italian  imperialism  was  whetted.  One 
does  not  know  how  much  Italy  has  been 
promised  in  the  event  of  an  Entente  vic- 
tory, but  one  does  know  that  the  French 
and  English  statesmen  who  promised  any- 
thing at  all  to  Italy  beyond  the  Trentino, 
and  possibly  Triest,  did  so  in  wilful  dis- 
regard of  the  ideals  they  had  set  before 
180 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

them,  and  for  the  triumph  of  which  they 
had  solemnly  proclaimed  to  the  world  that 
the  sword  of  justice  and  Hberty  was 
drawn. 

The  contemporary  school  of  Italian  im- 
perialists have  lost  their  heads  entirely/ 

1  According  to  Signor  Giolitti's  journal,  the  Turin 
"Stampa,"  which  is  one  of  the  most  influential  news- 
papers in  Italy,  this  madness  has  spread  to  the  statesmen 
who  are  directing  the  destinies  of  all  the  European 
states.  Commenting  on  Mr.  Wilson's  address  to  the 
American  Senate,  the  "Stampa"  said  on  January  25, 
1917:  "Mr.  Wilson  speaks  like  one  who  can  put  himself 
beyond  and  above  the  passions  and  interests  which  divide 
us  so  cruelly.  .  .  .  To-day  Europe  is  losing  its  best  men, 
is  seeing  some  of  its  immense  wealth  destroyed,  is  de- 
pending always  more  and  more  on  the  good-will  of  neu- 
trals for  credit  and  for  the  furnishing  of  the  materials 
necessary  for  her  existence  and  for  the  continuation  of 
the  war."  After  admitting  that  the  idea  of  a  "peace 
without  victory,"  suggested  by  America,  hurts  I^uropean 
pride,  the  "Stampa"  sums  up  significantly:  "But  this 
phrase  could  not  have  been  pronounced  if  Europe,  by 
its  insane  diplomacy  of  these  last  years,  had  not  fur- 
ni.shed  to  the  United  States  the  occasion  to  speak  such 
language.  Mr.  Wilson's  'peace  without  victory'  reveals 
the  future  which  is  being  prepared  for  Europe,  if, 
through  the  efforts  of  the  best  men  of  the  opposing 
belligerent  groups,  one  does  not  find  the  spirit  of  reason 

181 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

If  the  statesmen  of  the  Entente  Powers 
had  studied  elosely  the  hterature  and  the 
programs  of  the  Dante  Ahghieri  Society 
and  the  Dahnatian  League,  and  followed 
the  development  of  the  colonial  and  irre- 
dentist propagandas  during  the  last  dec- 
ade, they  would  have  supported  with  all 
their  power  Signor  Giolitti  and  the  non- 
intervention elements  in  the  spring  of 
1915.  Italy's  neutrality  was  a  valuable 
asset  to  the  Entente.  Italy's  refusal  to 
march  with  her  Central  European  allies, 
and  the  assurance  to  France  that  there 
was  nothing  to  fear  on  the  Alpine  frontier, 
helped  incalculably  the  Entente  cause,  and 
was  for  Italy  herself  the  course  dictated 
by  national  interest.  But  active  partici- 
pation in  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  En- 

and  the  self-mastery  necessary  to  prevent  sacrificing,  on 
the  fields  of  battle,  hereafter  almost  stationary,  the 
political,  financial,  and  economic  future  of  all  the  na- 
tions in  the  war." 

183 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

tente  has  been  beneficial  neither  to  the 
Entente  nor  to  Italy.  The  statesmen  of 
France,  Great  Britain,  and  Russia  have 
come  to  reahze  that  Itahan  irredentists 
and  imperialists  are  without  shame  or  limit 
in  their  ambitions  and  are  incapable  of 
constructive  political  vision.  They  have 
had  to  yield  to  Italian  demands,  though, 
in  order  to  keep  the  coalition  intact.  The 
result  has  been  the  sacrifice  of  the  Ser- 
bians and  the  loss  of  Greek  aid.  Inside 
the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire  the  in- 
creased military  handicap  from  taking  on 
a  new  enemy  has  been  offset  by  the 
strengthening  of  the  loyalty  of  luglo- 
Slavs  to  the  Hapsburg  crown.  Italy, 
who  needed  all  her  resources  for  internal 
development  and  for  the  completion  of  the 
conquest  of  Tripoli,  is  spending  herself  in 
the  pursuit  of  illegitimate  aspirations. 
The  men  who  are  controlling  Italian 
183 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

policy  could  not  subscribe  to  Mr.  Bal- 
four's conditions  for  a  durable  peace  any 
more  than  the  men  who  are  controlhng  the 
policy  of  Germany.  Italy  wants  to  make 
the  Adriatic  an  Italian  sea,  to  retain  the 
Greek  islands  she  has  occupied  since  the 
treaty  of  Ouchy  and  get  more  Greek 
islands,  and  to  win  a  generous  slice  of 
Turkey  by  extending  her  sovereignty  over 
the  whole  Mediterranean  littoral  of  Asia 
Minor  from  the  corner  of  the  JEgean  Sea 
to  the  Bay  of  Alexandretta.  It  is  a  far 
cry  from  the  natural  and  just  demand  of 
sober-minded  patriots  for  the  Itahan 
Tyrol  and  the  rectification  of  the  disad- 
vantageous Austrian  frontier  to  this  pro- 
gram of  spoliation.  The  realization  of 
Italian  aspirations  in  the  Adriatic  would 
enslave  Slovenes,  Croatians,  Dalmatians, 
Montenegrans,  Albanians,  and  Greeks, 
and  would  deprive  central  Europe  of  its 
184 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

only  outlet  to  the  ^lediterranean.  The 
realization  of  Italian  aspirations  in  the 
JEgean  and  Asia  Minor  would  enslave 
Greeks,  Turks,  and  Armenians.  Thus 
would  disappear  all  that  the  Serbians  have 
been  fighting  for  and  suffering  for,  and 
the  dreams  of  Pachitch  and  Venizelos, 
loyal  friends  of  France  and  Great  Britain, 
who  have  risked  everything  for  the  En- 
tente cause. 

When  one  talks  about  the  Balkans,  just 
as  when  one  talks  about  the  Poles  and 
Armenians  and  Irish,  the  common  answer 
is,  "They  are  a  bad  lot — hopeless,  don't 
you  know — never  could  govern  themselves 
even  if  they  were  let  alone — would  always 
be  cutting  each  other's  throats."  This 
wide-spread  impression  is  the  result  of 
"giving  a  dog  a  bad  name."  No  proof  of 
the  assertions  and  charges  is  possible,  be- 
cause the  experiment  of  letting  these  na- 
185 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

tions  work  out  their  own  salvation  has  not 
been  tried.  How  dare  we,  then,  say  that 
it  would  fail?  Exactly  the  same  attitude 
was  taken  by  the  rest  of  Europe  during 
the  decades  of  the  slow  process  of  Italian 
and  German  unification.  Everything 
that  is  being  said  so  glibly  about  the  unfit- 
ness of  self-government  of  subject  races 
and  divided  nationalities  was  said  seventy- 
five  years  ago  about  Italians,  to  whose 
unification  the  chancelleries  of  the  Powers 
were  bitterly  opposed.  Italy  was  unified, 
and  peace  and  prosperity  reigned  in  the 
Italian  peninsula  only  when  the  Italians 
were  freed  from  foreign  masters,  foreign 
intrigues,  foreign  internal  interference. 

Germany  is  not  going  to  be  put  ho?^s  de 
combat  in  the  duel  by  the  weapon  she  her- 
self chose.  She  cannot  be  forced  into 
submission  or  repentance  by  the  armies  of 
her  enemies.  Germany  does  not  admit 
186 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

that  she  is  in  the  wrong,  and  the  Govern- 
ment is  supported  in  all  sincerity  by  in- 
telhgent  public  opinion.  Germany  is 
gaining  ground  rapidly  in  Balkan  pubhc 
opinion,  for  nothing  succeeds  like  success. 
The  Entente  Powers  must  remember  that 
Germany  is  in  possession.  They  have  one 
chance  left  to  turn  the  tide  in  the  Balkans, 
and  that  chance  is  not  by  reenforcing 
General  Sarrail's  army  at  Saloniki.  The 
fortune  of  arms  has  failed  them  in  the 
Balkans.  Insincere  and  secret  diplomacy 
has  also  failed  them.  But  they  can  still 
put  in  specific  terms,  applied  to  the 
Balkans,  what  they  have  stated  in  general 
terms  to  be  their  aims  in  the  war.  They 
can  send  a  joint  note  to  friends  and  foes, 
Montenegro,  Serbia,  Rumania,  Bulgaria, 
Greece,  the  Venizelos  Government,  and 
the  Albanian  tribes,  declaring  that  the 
Entente  Powers  are  willing  to  guarantee 
187 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

the  Balkan  peninsula  to  the  Balkan  peo- 
ples, and  promising  unequivocally  that,  if 
they  are  successful  in  expelling  Turks  and 
Austro-Hungarians  and  Germans,  they 
do  not  intend  to  introduce  any  other  for- 
eign element.  They  can  promise  to  work 
jointly  for  the  establishment  of  a  just 
Balkan  balance  of  power,  by  waiving 
their  o^^^l  territorial  ambitions  to  make 
possible  a  durable  peace  and  the  triumph 
of  the  principle  for  which  they  are  fight- 
ing. 

We  have  had  a  hundred  years  of  "prac- 
tical" diplomacy  in  the  Balkans.  Ever 
since  Greece  and  Serbia  began  the 
struggle  to  shake  off  the  Ottoman  yoke, 
European  statesmen  have  been  "prac- 
tical." They  have  viewed  Balkan  condi- 
tions not  as  men  with  a  conscience  knew 
they  ought  to  be,  but  as  men  playing  a 
game  thought  they  were.  They  are  doing 
188 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

the  same  to-day.  If  they  deny  the  pos- 
sibihtj^  of  an  altruistic  attitude  in  dealing 
with  Balkan  affairs,  are  not  the  Entente 
statesmen,  who  are  said  to  have  arrived  at 
a  secret  agreement  on  the  future  of  the 
Balkans  (an  agi'cement  whose  terms  are 
unkno\Mi  alike  to  their  o^\^l  people  and 
the  people  of  the  Balkans),  playing  Ger- 
many's game?  The  formula  of  putting 
might  before  right  is  popularly  supposed 
to  be  German.  And — in  the  Balkans  at 
least — the  might  is  on  Germany's  side.  It 
is  perfectly  plain,  then,  that  the  Entente 
Powers  must  put  right  before  might  in 
the  Balkan  diplomacy,  and  must  saj^  to 
the  Balkan  nations,  we  are  fighting  to 
protect  you  from  Teutonic  overlords  for 
your  own  sakes,  and  not  in  order  that  we 
may  be  your  overlords.  No  other  argu- 
ment will  convince  the  Balkan  races  that 
it  is  to  their  interest  to  risk  now — and  in 
189 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

the  futui*e  also — opposing  the  Drang 
nach  Osten  by  cooperating  with  the 
enemies  of  Germany.  Having  revealed 
in  the  Balkans  their  inferiority  in  military 
strength  to  Germany,  the  alternative  to 
defeat  for  the  Entente  Powers  is  renuncia- 
tion of  ambitions  and  methods  similar  to 
those  of  Germany. 

The  Balkan  peninsula  has  been  called 
contemptuously  by  European  political 
writers  a  cockpit.  But  cocks  do  not  fight 
unless  they  are  trained,  provided  with 
spurs,  and  set  at  one  another.  Banish  the 
Great  Powers,  and  the  cockpit  would  be- 
come a  barn-yard,  with  only  an  occasional 
spat.  If  the  natural  expansion  of  each 
Balkan  State  along  ethnographic  and 
economic  lines  were  allowed  to  develop 
freely,  causes  for  antagonisms  and  conflict 
could  be  removed,  and  there  would  be  a 
possibility  of  peaceful  national  develop- 
190 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

ment  and  of  federation  in  treating  foreign 
affairs. 

Throughout  the  period  of  nearly  a  hun- 
dred years  during  which  the  Osmanhs 
were  gTadually  losing  the  Balkan  penin- 
sula there  has  never  been  a  time  that  Eu- 
ropean diplomacy  has  not  been  active 
in  repressing  the  natural  expansion  of 
the  emancipated  races.  Every  rebellion 
against  the  Ottoman  yoke,  up  to  and  in- 
cluding (as  we  have  seen  above)  the  1912 
war  of  liberation,  has  been  viewed  with 
alarm  by  the  European  Powers.  In  the 
guise  of  aiding  and  protecting  the  Balkan 
nations,  the  Powers  have  interfered  to 
frustrate  every  effort  to  win  independence 
and  national  unity.  One  cannot  insist  too 
strongly  on  the  point  that  the  antagonisms 
between  the  Balkan  States  are  not  prima- 
rily due  to  conflicting  aspirations  inherited 
from  ante-Ottoman  days.  In  reviving 
191 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

fourteenth-century  conflicts  and  historic 
counterclaims  and  traditions,  Greece  and 
Serbia  and  Bulgaria  and  Rumania  are 
victims  of  thwarted  natural  expansion. 
European  diplomacy,  imposing  a  veto 
upon  natural  expansion,  caused  history  to 
be  denatured  by  translating  ancient 
dynastic  rivalries  into  modern  national 
aspirations. 

The  Balkan  States,  in  their  natural  de- 
velopment, need  not  have  turned  against 
one  another.  There  was  no  necessity  for 
the  JVIacedonian  question.  If  Greece  had 
been  allowed  to  expand  into  Epirus  and 
to  follow  her  maritime  bent  by  forming  an 
island  empire  out  of  Greek  islands,  Greece 
would  hardly  have  come  into  conflict  with 
Bulgaria  in  Macedonia.  If  Serbia  had 
been  allowed  to  expand  to  the  Adriatic 
through  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  and 
Dalmatia,  historic  Serbian  lands  inhabited 
192 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

by  Serbian-speaking  races,  she  would  not 
have  been  induced  alternately  by  Austria 
and  Russia  to  make  a  propaganda  against 
Greeks  and  Bulgarians  in  Macedonia. 
If  the  treaty  of  Berlin  had  not  given 
Rumanian  Bessarabia  to  Russia  and 
"compensated"  Rumania  south  of  the 
Danube  with  Bulgarian  Dobrudja,  there 
need  not  have  been  an  Alsace-Lorraine 
question  between  Rumania  and  Bulgaria. 
These  hypotheses  are  not  fanciful,  or  to 
be  rejected  without  careful  examination, 
for  they  represent  the  intimate  conviction 
of  eminent  Balkan  patriots  who  have  de- 
voted their  lives  to  a  struggle  against  the 
limitations  imposed  upon  them  by  the 
rivalry  and  jealousy  of  the  Great  Powers. 
Aspirations  as  noble,  as  just,  as  sacred  as 
those  of  Belgium  and  France  liave  been 
disregarded  and  sacrificed,  and  are  being 
still  disregarded  and  sacrificed,  by  Euro- 
193 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

pean  diplomacy  in  the  Balkans.  And  the 
blame  and  shame  of  European  diplomacy 
is  all  the  greater  when  we  have  many  in- 
dubitable proofs,  in  studying  the  negotia- 
tions between  the  Powers  and  Subhme 
Porte,  that  considerations  wholly  outside 
of  anything  affecting  the  Balkan  penin- 
sula and  its  inhabitants  most  often  in- 
spired the  efforts  of  the  Powers  to  keep 
the  Balkans  in  slavery  to  the  Turks. 

Balkan  antagonisms  can  be  healed. 
Conflicting  Balkan  aspirations  can  be  rec- 
onciled. A  just  and  permanent  balance 
of  power  can  be  established  in  the  Balkans. 
What  is  needed  is  not  a  victorious  group 
of  Powers  imposing  their  will  upon  the 
Balkan  nations,  but  the  sincere  applica- 
tion of  Mr.  Balfour's  three  conditions  for 
a  durable  peace.  The  entry  of  the  United 
States  into  the  war  is  extremely  important 
and  beneficial  in  regard  to  the  Balkan  set- 
194. 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

tlement.  For  at  the  Peace  Conference, 
we  shall  have  no  ax  to  grind,  and  can  make 
our  voice  heard  insistently  to  assure  an 
equitable  settlement.  American  public 
opinion,  then,  must  acquaint  itself  with 
the  Balkan  problem,  and  have  a  solution 
to  offer.  Our  idealism  will  have  no  weight 
unless  it  is  logical,  intelligent,  and  con- 
structive. One  can  suggest  the  outstand- 
ing lines  of  a  settlement  that  is  based  upon 
the  interests  of  the  nations  concerned  and 
does  not  have  to  consider  the  ambitions  of 
outside  Powers. 

1.  Rumania.  Whatever  inspired  and 
interested  "authorities"  may  wi'ite,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  terre  irrcdente  of 
Rumania,  Transylvania,  and  Bukowina, 
if  a  plebiscite  were  taken,  would  vote  to 
remain  with  the  Austro-Hungarian  Em- 
pire: so  Rumania  should  renounce  sol- 
emnly her  aspirations  in  connection  with 
195 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

these  provinces  in  return  for  evacuation 
of  her  territory  by  the  Central  Powers. 
Russia  should  restore  a  portion  at  least  of 
Bessarabia  to  Rumania,  and  Rumania 
should  cede  back  to  Bulgaria  the  part  of 
the  Dobioidja  she  stole  from  Bulgaria  in 
1913.  The  Danube  states,  Germany, 
Austria-Hungary,  Serbia,  and  Bulgaria 
should  be  guaranteed  unobstructed  pas- 
sage on  the  Danube  through  Rumanian 
waters  even  in  time  of  war. 

2.  Serbia.  Evacuation  and  restoration 
of  independence  upon  the  following  basis : 
The  Central  Powers  to  agree  to  recon- 
stitute the  kingdom  as  it  existed  before  the 
treaty  of  Bukharest,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Pirot  district,  which  should  be  retained 
by  Bulgaria;  to  give  Serbia  northern 
Macedonia  up  to  the  minimum  line  estab- 
lished in  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  treaty  of 
1912;  to  cede  to  Serbia,  Bosnia,  Herze- 
196 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

govina,  and  Dalmatia  from  the  Narente 
River  to  the  Bay  of  Cattaro;  not  to  op- 
pose any  future  pohtical  union  between 
Serbia  and  Montenegro;  not  to  oppose  a 
possible  future  division  of  Albania  be- 
tween Serbia  and  Greece.  Serbia  to 
agree  to  restore  the  Pirot  district  to  Bul- 
garia; to  waive  all  claims  to  Macedonia 
south  of  the  line  established  as  the  mini- 
mum of  her  pretensions  in  the  Serbo-Bul- 
garian  treaty  of  1912;  to  bind  herself  not 
to  make  a  propaganda  officially,  nor  to 
permit  the  Narodna  Ohrana  or  any  other 
irredentist  organization  to  make  a  propa- 
ganda among  the  south  Slavs  of  Croatia 
and  other  portions  of  the  Austro-Hun- 
garian  Empire;  not  to  fortify  the  Bay  of 
Cattaro;  not  to  make  an  offensive  and  de- 
fensive alliance  with  Italy  or  with  Aus- 
tria-Hungary. 

3.  Montenegro.     The  Central  Powers 
197 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

to  restore  to  Montenegro  its  territories  as 
they  were  at  the  outbreak  of  the  present 
war,  and  Austria  to  cede  the  lower  end  of 
Dalmatia  from  the  Bay  of  Cattaro  to  the 
present  Montenegran  frontier.  In  re- 
turn, Montenegro  to  assume  the  same 
obligations  as  Serbia  concerning  the  for- 
tifications of  the  Bay  of  Cattaro  and 
the  formation  of  offensive  and  defensive 
alliances  with  the  two  great  Adriatic 
Powers;  and  to  promise  to  submit  to  a 
plebiscite  the  question  of  pohtical  fusion 
with  Serbia. 

4.  Bulgaria.  Evacuation  of  Rumania 
against  the  cession  of  the  Dobrudja  dis- 
trict which  Bulgaria  lost  in  the  treaty  of 
Bukharest,  and  evacuation  of  Serbia 
against  cession  of  the  Pirot  district  and  ail 
of  Macedonia  below  the  minimum  Serbia 
line  of  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  treaty  of 
1912.  Evacuation  of  Greek  Macedonia 
198 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

against  the  cession  by  Greece  of  Mace- 
donia east  of  a  line  drawn  from  the  Mesta 
River,  where  it  crosses  the  present  Greco- 
Bulgarian  frontier,  south  between  Serres 
and  Drama  to  the  Gulf  of  Rendina,  thus 
giving  Kavala  to  Bulgaria;  the  recogni- 
tion by  Greece  of  Bulgaria's  rights  to 
JNIacedonia  west  of  the  Vardar  from  the 
present  Greek  frontier  to  the  minimum 
Serbian  line  of  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  treaty 
of  1912;  and  the  cession  by  Greece  of 
Thasos  and  Samothrace  to  Bulgaria. 

5.  Greece.  Extension  northwest  to  in- 
clude Epirus  south  of  a  line  drawn  from 
the  southern  end  of  Lake  Ochrida  to 
Khimara  (north  of  Santi  Quaranta)  on 
the  Ionian  Sea.  Cession  to  Bulgaria  of 
the  eastern  end  of  Macedonia,  as  outlined 
above.  All  the  Greek  islands  in  the 
iEgean  Sea  (except  Thasos  and  Samoth- 
race, which  are  essential  for  the  protection 
199 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

of  the  Bulgarian  coast,  and  Tenedos  and 
Imbros,  which  control  the  Dardanelles) 
to  be  handed  over  to  Greece.  This  means 
that  Italy  evacuate  Dodecanese  and  Great 
Britain  Cyprus.  Greece  must  undertake 
not  to  fortify  Mudros  or  any  other  part  of 
the  island  of  Lemnos. 

6.  Albania.  Albania  will  have  to  re- 
main temporarily  as  at  present  consti- 
tuted, with  the  exception  of  the  southern 
Epirote  portion,  which  ought  to  be  al- 
lotted immediately  to  Greece.  Albania 
presents  the  most  perplexing  problem  of 
Balkan  readjustment,  and  will  have  to  be 
kept,  under  international  or  Pan-Balkan 
control  as  an  autonomous  region  for  a 
period  of  trial  years.  If  Albanians  are 
able  to  fuse  into  a  nation,  disinterested 
international  control,  from  which  both 
Austria-Hungary  and  Italy  must  be  rig- 
orously excluded,  will  establish  the  con- 
200 


ITALY  AND  THE  BALKANS 

tentions  of  Albanian  nationalists.  If  the 
experiment  does  not  succeed,  Albania 
should  eventually  be  divided  between  Ser- 
bia and  Greece. 

7.  Constatitinojjle  and  the  Straits, 
The  reasons  against  Russian  occupation 
have  already  been  set  forth  in  an  earlier 
chapter.  If  the  Turks  are  driven  out  of 
Europe,  this  region  and  the  islands  of 
Tenedos  and  Imbros  ought  to  be  interna- 
tionahzed,  with  the  Enos-Midia  line  as 
the  Bulgarian  frontier.  But  as  interna- 
tionalization presents  insurmountable  dif- 
ficulties unless  the  peace  conference  es- 
tablishes a  similar  regime  for  the  other 
great  international  waterways,  the  Balkan 
balance  of  power,  as  well  as  the  general 
world  equihbrium,  is  best  secured  by  leav- 
ing Constantinople  and  the  straits  to  the 
Ottoman  Empire,  with  the  stipulation 
that  all  fortifications  be  destroyed,  free 
201 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

passage  be  assured  to  merchant  vessels  of 
all  nations  and  to  war  vessels  of  the  coun- 
tries bordering  on  the  Black  Sea. 

I  realize  fully  that  these  suggestions  are 
open  to  objection  on  many  points,  but 
in  their  ensemble  they  represent  the  ap- 
plication of  the  principle  that  nations  have 
a  right  to  decide  their  own  destinies,  no 
nation  being  subjected  to  another  nation 
by  force.  I  submit  that  they  are  practical 
suggestions,  too,  for  those  who  are  oj)- 
posed  to  German  political  expansion  in  the 
near  East.  For  if  the  conscience  of  the 
world  is  not  alive  to  the  necessity  and  the 
justice  of  leaving  the  Balkan  peninsula 
to  the  Balkan  races,  Germany  will  keep 
the  hegemony  in  the  Balkans  that  she  has 
already  won. 


202 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  FOR 
THE  WORLD 

No  peace  can  last  or  ought  to  last  which 
does  not  recognize  and  accept  the  principle  that 
governments  derive  all  their  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed,  and  that  no  right 
anywhere  exists  to  hand  peoples  about  from 
potentate  to  potentate  as  if  they  were  prop- 
erty. .  .  .  Henceforth  inviolable  security  of 
life,  of  worship  and  of  industrial  and  social  de- 
velopment should  be  guaranteed  to  all  peoples 
who  have  lived  hitherto  under  the  power  of  gov- 
ernments devoted  to  a  faith  and  purpose  hostile 
to  their  own.  ...  I  am  proposing  that  the  na- 
tions should  with  one  accord  adopt  the  doctrine 
of  President  Monroe  as  the  doctrine  of  the 
world:  that  no  nation  should  seek  to  extend 
polity  over  any  other  nation  or  people,  but  that 
every  people  should  be  left  free  to  determine  its 
own  policy,  its  own  way  of  development,  un- 
hindered, unthreatened,  unafraid,  the  little 
along  with  the  great  and  powerful.  ...  I  am 
proposing  government  by  the  consent  of  the 
203 


MONROE  DOCTRINE 

governed.  .  .  These  are  American  principles, 
American  policies.  We  could  stand  for  no  oth- 
ers. .  .  .  They  are  the  principles  of  mankind, 
and  must  prevail. — President  Wilson  to  tlie 
American  Senate,  January  ^£,  1917. 

EXCEPT  in  socialist  and  extreme 
liberal  and  radical  circles,  whose 
official  newspapers  reflect  the  opinion  of 
minority  parties,  the  message  of  President 
Wilson  to  the  American  Senate  was  re- 
ceived with  coldness  and  reserve  in  all  the 
belligerent  countries.  There  was  little 
difference  in  the  editorial  comment  of 
London,  Paris,  Berlin,  Vienna,  Rome, 
Petrograd,  and  Constantinople.  Un- 
fortunately, the  diplomacy  of  the  Euro- 
pean powers  has  refused  during  the  pres- 
ent war  to  cut  loose  from  the  traditional 
foreign  policy  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
It  is  impossible  for  any  of  the  belligerent 
powers  to  agree  offhand  to  follow  the 
path  of  peace  and  justice  unequivocally 
204) 


FOR  THE  WORLD 
set  forth  by  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  Adherence  to  the  principles  that 
President  Wilson  quite  rightly  calls 
American  policies  would  mean  the  end  of 
European  imperialism  and  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  doctrine  of  European  "emi- 
nent domain." 

Europe  has  made  no  effort  to  combat 
the  logic  of  President  Wilson's  conditions 
of  a  durable  peace.  I  have  searched  in 
vain  for  an  editorial  or  an  article  or  a 
speech  taking  up  in  detail  the  points  of 
the  Presidential  message  to  the  Senate, 
contesting  the  facts  or  the  line  of  argu- 
ment, and  endeavoring  to  show  where  and 
how  Mr.  Wilson  is  wrong.  The  criticisms 
of  the  message  have  either  evaded  the 
issues  altogether  and  discussed  irrelevant 
matters,  or  have  been  born  of  blind  pas- 
sion and  sentimental  hysteria.  Nowhere 
in  Europe  does  one  find  a  disposition  to 
205 


MONROE  DOCTRINE 

consider  any  other  peace  than  that  im- 
posed by  force  for  the  benefit  of  the  victor- 
ious group  of  belhgerents.  In  every  bel- 
ligerent country,  including  even  Turkey, 
I  know  personally  men  of  the  highest 
standing  and  authority  who  think  exactly 
as  President  Wilson  thinks;  but  with  the 
single  exception  of  Signor  Giolitti,  former 
premier  of  Italy,  not  a  statesman  who 
played  a  part  in  the  diplomacy  of  the 
decade  preceding  the  present  war  has  the 
moral  courage  to  approve  President  Wil- 
son's conditions  for  a  durable  peace. 

The  American  President  and  the  Amer- 
ican people  have  not  had  a  good  press  in 
Europe  since  August,  1914.  American 
neutrality  has  been  persistently  misunder- 
stood and  bitterly  resented.  There  has 
been  a  tendency  to  consider  the  people 
of  the  United  States  oblivious  to  moral 
issues,  bent  on  money-making,  and  divided 
206 


FOR  THE  WORLD 

into  unassimilated  groups  according  to 
their  European  origin.  JMuch  of  the  mis- 
understanding of  America  can  be  traced 
to  Americans  resident  abroad,  who  have 
not  hesitated  to  speak  ex  cathedra  about 
matters  of  American  social  and  pohtical 
hfe,  of  which  they  had  hmited  and  im- 
perfect, if  any,  knowledge.  During  the 
last  two  years  I  have  talked  with  Ameri- 
cans in  London,  Berlin,  ]\Iunich,  Vienna, 
and  Paris  who  told  me  that  they  were 
ashamed  of  their  native  country  for  ex- 
actly opposite  reasons.  According  to  the 
place  in  which  they  lived,  these  Americans 
thought  that  President  Wilson  had  dis- 
honored the  American  flag  and  denied 
the  traditions  of  American  history  by  not 
declaring  war  against  Great  Britain  or 
Germany.  Few  of  them  knew  anything 
about  either  the  underlying  causes  of  the 
European  War  or  the  history  and  social 
207 


MONROE  DOCTRINE 

and  political  development  of  the  American 
commonwealth. 

President  Wilson's  message  of  January 
22,  1917,  is  the  embodiment  of  American 
idealism.  This  idealism  is  not  to  be 
sneered  at  and  ridiculed.  When  Presi- 
dent Wilson  sets  forth  the  fundamental 
conditions  of  a  durable  peace,  declaring 
that  "these  are  American  principles, 
American  policies,"  and  warns  the  world 
that  the  United  States  "could  stand  for 
no  others,"  his  meaning  is  perfectly  plain. 
The  weight  and  influence  of  America  in 
the  peace  conference  will  be  thrown  into 
the  balance  on  every  question  that  is 
brought  up  to  secure  "government  by  the 
consent  of  the  governed."  The  entry  of 
the  United  States  into  the  w^ar  should  not 
mean  that  American  principles  and  Ameri- 
can policies  are  in  any  way  modified. 
Long  before  deliberate  provocation  made 
208 


FOR  THE  WORLD 
necessary  a  break  with  Germany  Ameri- 
cans had  passed  judgment  upon  Ger- 
many's methods  of  submarine  warfare. 
Belligerency  cannot  destroy  the  persistent 
idealism  of  the  American  vision  of  world 
peace.  It  enhances,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  significance  of  that  idealism  by  testing 
its  sincerity.  Active  participation  in  the 
war  should  not  entail  the  blindness  of 
Old- Wo  rid  traditional  prejudices  and 
Old- World  racial  passions.  We  are  not 
entangled  in  the  meshes  of  Old- World 
diplomacy.  We  are  not  bound  by  secret 
agreements,  entered  into  without  the 
knowledge  of  the  nation.  We  have  no 
world  empire  to  retain  and  increase. 

The  United  States  is  European  civiliza- 
tion transplanted  and  developed  by  Euro- 
peans. The  process  has  been  different 
from  that  of  any  other  American  state. 
Canada  remained  in  the  political  system 
209 


MONROE  DOCTRINE 

of  a  European  power.  Immigrants  to 
Canada  either  retained  their  Old-World 
allegiance  or  were  compelled  to  transfer 
their  allegiance  from  one  Old-World  gov- 
ernment to  another.^  In  Central  and 
South  America  the  stock  for  three  hun- 
dred years  was  mingled  with  native  blood 
or  remained  so  distinctively  Latin  that  the 
later  European  inmiigration  has  not  been 
assimilated.  The  United  States  is  the 
only  country  in  the  world  in  which  all  the 
European  races  have  succeeded  in  fusing 
into  a  new  nation. 

When  one  considers  how  the  American 

1  Canadians  are  not  allowed  to  forget  the  British 
North  American  Act.  After  writing  the  above  lines,  I 
read  that  the  Supreme  Court  had  just  declared  imcon- 
stitutional  the  direct  legislation  law  passed  by  the  Mani- 
toba Legislature.  The  five  judges  were  unanimous  in 
holding  that  direct  legislation  was  unconstitutional,  since 
it  was  contrary  to  the  British  North  American  Act.  One 
of  the  judges  remarked  in  his  written  opinion:  "The 
public  are  not  sovereign  in  this  country.  In  the  United 
States  the  people  are  sovereign,  but  we  get  our  sovereign 
power  from  England." 

210 


FOR  THE  WORLD 

nation  has  been  formed,  and  is  still  being 
formed,  he  realizes  the  absurdity  of 
criticisms  in  connection  with  our  attitude 
toward  the  European  War,  hastily  made 
by  publicists  who  know  nothing  of  Ameri- 
can history  and  American  life,  and  taken 
up  and  glibly  repeated  by  the  unthinking. 
The  outstanding  criticisms  are :  the  United 
States  is  not  a  nation,  but  a  collection  of 
unassimilated  European  groups;  Ameri- 
cans cannot  understand  the  issues  at  stake 
in  Europe. 

Alannists  talk  of  unassimilated  immi- 
grant groups  in  the  United  States  who  are 
not  "genuine  Americans"  and  who  can- 
not feel  like  "genuine  Americans."  They 
believe  that  large  immigration  to  America 
other  than  Anglo-Saxon  is  a  phenomenon 
of  the  last  generation  or  two.  But  this 
is  not  borne  out  by  the  facts.  In  propor- 
tion to  the  total  number  of  inhabitants  of 
211 


MONROE  DOCTRINE 

the  United  States,  the  immigration  from 
continental  Europe  has  always  heen  large. 
It  was  large  even  in  colonial  days.  At  no 
time  in  our  national  history  has  this  con- 
tinental immigration  proved  difficult  or 
slow  of  assimilations.  Nor  has  it  ever  suc- 
ceeded in  forming  colonies  with  political 
attachment  to  a  European  motherland.  I 
have  not  ceased  since  the  beginning  of  the 
war  to  protest  against  the  unfounded  and 
cruelly  unjust  German- American  scare. 
From  the  Revolutionary  War  down  to  the 
present  time  the  United  States  has  never 
had  any  reason  to  question  the  loyalty  of 
the  German- American  element.  Ameri- 
cans of  German  stock  are  just  as  good 
Americans  as  those  of  any  other  stock. 
We  may  not  be  able  to  make  Americans 
of  the  first  generation  of  our  immigrants 
unless  they  come  to  us  in  childhood,  but 
we  never  fail  to  cast  the  second  generation 
212 


FOR  THE  WORLD 

in  the  American  mold.  Our  schools  and 
early  environment  are  irresistible  influ- 
ences of  assimilation.  Even  in  some  of 
our  large  cities,  where  first  generation  im- 
migrants have  tried  to  transplant  the  Old 
World,  the  second  generation  proves  re- 
fractory to  what  it  instinctively  feels  are 
exotic  institutions. 

By  the  last  American  census,  thirteen 
million  Americans  were  of  foreign  birth 
and  nineteen  other  millions  were  born  of 
foreign  parents.  An  additional  five  mil- 
lions have  gone  from  Europe  to  America 
since  the  census  of  1910,  and  the  foreign 
born  already  in  the  United  States  have 
been  more  prolific  than  the  native  born. 
Is  it  to  be  presumed  that  this  large  por- 
tion of  our  population  has  not  brought  to 
America  a  keen,  intimate,  personal  knowl- 
edge of  the  ills  from  which  Europe  is 
suffering?  Do  not  our  American  Poles, 
213 


MONROE  DOCTRINE 

Irish,  Germans,  Bohemians,  and  Jews 
know  what  pohtical  and  religious  perse- 
cution means?  Do  not  our  immigrants 
hold  in  detestation  racial  antagonisms  and 
the  crushing  taxation  due  to  the  main- 
tenance and  increase  of  armies  and  navies  ? 
Is  it  forgotten  that  the  foreign  elements 
of  the  American  electorate,  inspired  by 
their  own  bitter  experience  in  Europe, 
were  solidly  opposed  to  the  wave  of  im- 
perialism that  threatened  to  carry  the 
United  States  into  the  maelstrom  of  in- 
ternational colonial  rivalry  after  the  war 
with  Spain?  The  marvelous  growth  of 
America  during  the  last  two  generations 
is  largely  due  to  the  desire  of  Europeans 
to  get  away  from  compulsory  military 
service,  and  from  the  financial,  economic, 
and  political  handicaps  of  a  continent 
continually  disturbed  by  international 
rivalries.^     Our    immigrants     were     not 

1  The  criticism  that  the  American  attitude  is  because 
214 


FOR  THE  WORLD 

driven  to  America  because  of  inability  to 
hold  their  own  in  Europe,  and  because 
they  felt  that  transplantation  would  bring 
a  change  of  luck.  Since  1848,  just  as  in 
the  two  preceding  centuries,  the  Euro- 
peans who  emigrated  to  America  have 
been  the  enterprising  elements,  clear- 
headed and  full  of  sj^irit,  w^ho  dared  to  cut 
loose  from  the  past  and  venture  every- 
thing in  order  to  win  religious  and  political 
freedom  and  better  economic  conditions. 

of  ignorance  through  distance  has  as  sponsor  Premier 
Lloyd-George,  who  in  a  recent  Abraham  Lincoln's  birth- 
day-message to  the  "New  York  Times"  said:  "It  has 
been  difficult  for  a  nation  separated  from  Europe  by  an 
ocean  and  without  political  relations  with  the  European 
peoples  to  grasp  the  true  significance  of  this  war,"  etc. 
Mr.  Lloyd-George  is  one  of  the  most  insular  of  English- 
men, who  knows  as  little  about  the  United  States  as  he 
knows  about  the  nations  of  continental  Europe.  Not 
more  than  ten  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the  British 
Isles  has  any  connection  with  Europe,  and  the  connec- 
tion of  that  ten  per  cent,  is  extremely  slight.  Forty  per 
cent,  of  the  people  in  the  United  States  have  an  intimate 
connection  with  Europe  from  the  Ural  Mountains  to  the 
North  Sea. 

215 


MONROE  DOCTRINE 

The  nineteenth-century  immigrants  met 
their  colonial  predecessors,  then,  on  com- 
mon ground.  They  came  to  have  a  share 
in  the  "government  by  the  consent  of  the 
governed"  that  the  older  stock  had  es- 
tablished. If  they  had  not  appreciated  to 
the  full  the  advantages  of  the  New- World 
democracy,  they  would  not  have  come. 
They  were  ripe  for  assimilation  from  the 
moment  they  landed  on  our  shores.  The 
American  immigration  of  each  succeeding 
generation,  far  from  threatening  to  de- 
stroy our  institutions,  has  strengthened 
them.  Through  the  immigi-ants,  indeed, 
Americans  of  older  stock  have  been  con- 
stantly reminded  of  their  blessings  under 
the  New- World  dispensation. 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  was  established, 

and  has  been  constantly  upheld,  by  the 

American  people.     They  were  unwilling 

to  have  the  baneful  handicaps  because  of 

216 


FOR  THE  WORLD 

which  they  had  left  the  Old  World  follow 
them  to  the  Xew  World.  Nearly  a 
century  of  history  has  proved  the  wisdom 
and  the  success  of  the  JNIonroe  Doctrine. 
The  United  States  has  been  able  to  keep 
out  of  entangling  alliances,  and  to  pro- 
tect every  other  American  republic  from 
the  inevitably  disastrous  results  of  the 
inlieritance  of  European  racial  rivalry 
through  the  extension  of  European  im- 
perialism. 

To-day  Europe  is  looking  to  her  chil- 
dren in  America  for  aid  in  establishing  a 
world  peace.  We  are  willing,  we  are 
eager,  to  give  that  aid;  but  how  can  we 
offer  to  Europe  any  other  solution  than 
that  which  we  have  tested  and  proved 
good  in  the  foundation  and  development 
of  our  own  national  life,  and  which  we  are 
making  the  basic  principle  of  our  own 
foreign  policy?  We  cannot  be  convinced 
217 


MONROE  DOCTRINE 

by  the  polemicists  and  partizans  of  either 
group  of  belhgerents  that  the  panacea  for 
the  world's  woes  is  the  destruction  of 
Great  Britain's  naval  supremacy  or  of 
German's  military  supremacy.  Nor,  de- 
spite our  horror  and  detestation  of  what 
Jews  and  Poles  and  Ai-menians  and  Bel- 
gians and  Serbians  are  being  made  to 
suffer,  do  we  think  that  the  punishment 
of  and  a  change  in  the  political  status  of 
Russia,  Turkey,  Germany,  and  Austria- 
Hungary  would  prevent  the  renewal  in 
the  very  near  futm-e  of  wrongs  inflicted 
uj)on  small  and  weak  nations.  With 
President  Wilson  we  propose  "govern- 
ment by  the  consent  of  the  governed"  as 
a  formula  for  the  readjustment  of  the 
world. 


218 


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